


Absolute

by sharkgriffin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Biphobia, Blackouts, F/F, Homophobia, Mental Health Issues, Schizophrenia, Suicide Attempt, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 14:12:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4749344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkgriffin/pseuds/sharkgriffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months ago, Anna Milton met Ruby in a mental health clinic. Four months ago, they fell in love. Three months ago, they vowed to leave together. One month ago, one of them was gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to let everyone know that this will be my last supernatural fanfiction ever. I stopped watching the show a long time ago and this is my entry for the spn femslash minibang which can be found at spnfemslashnews.tumblr.com.

She has been abandoned so that they can rip her apart, piece by piece.They are invisible to everyone, even her. But she is different because  she can hear them. She can hear the whispers. Some, she can make out what they are saying, threats, insults. These she can deny and tell herself it is not real, that this is just her. It’s the ones she can’t understand, the endless screams that echo off the white walls that hurt. They are screams and howls and make her feel her own pain and as she struggles against them, she finds she is screaming and howling as well, becoming one of them. It feels like it is just her and them, the rest of the world gone and for a minute, she forgets who she is.

 On the third day, they've died down. She is alone in the room with light streaming in from the top windows. She has no knowledge of time, time had no meaning in her previous state. It was the impatient and rather cold nurse who informed her of this as she came and sat down opposite her.

She feels her presence first, although she has become so unaware of what was real and what wasn't that she has grown used to this endless reality. She has almost accepted that this is where she will live eternally. But she realizes the presence, she realizes this is not just a trick of her mind. There is a woman. And she is here to see Anna.

"Anna, can you hear me?"

Still slightly suspicious, Anna turns her head so that her entire field of eyesight is fixed on the woman but she does not respond.

"Do you know where you are?"

Where is she? The best question she has heard. She does not remember coming here, she was too distracted by the screeching voices in her head. All she knows is her time here. But her time before that is coming back to her.

"You're in the Southern Ohio Mental Health Clinic. My name is Doctor Vizyak. Do you know why you're here?"

Anna gives a sharp nod, causing the middle aged woman to look up from her clipboard. She is clearly not expecting a reaction. Maybe she thinks Anna cannot hear her, that she really is in a world of her own. A mental health clinic. She is insane.

"You were at your college. It was close to final exams. You were with your friends. I have their statements right here. You attacked them. Now Anna, can you explain to me what you were doing?"

Anna does not look in her eye, she pinches her wrist, checking if what is happening is real. Then she looks to the floor and her curtain of flaming hair falls down.

"Protecting them," she mutters. Her throat is dry and her stomach rumbles. She has not ingested anything for days.

"Protecting them?" the doctor parrots back.

"Protecting them, maybe trying to keep them away from me. I know it wasn't real but then it just seemed so..." she gathers her breath, letting her heart rate fall. Doctor Vizyak is nodding at her to continue.

"Forget it, it's stupid."

"Anna, my job is to help you, maybe to understand why exactly you are seeing these images, to figure out what is going on inside your brain. The longer you hold back from me, the further back you are pushing your date of moving back to your family."

Of being released. Of being free.

"There were voices, like whispers at first. Yeah, whispers. And they just kept getting louder and louder."

"These voices, had you heard them before?"

"No, it was the first time."

"Tell me what exactly they were saying to you."

"They weren't exactly talking to me. There were two of them at first, but then there were more. They were talking to each other, having a conversation. Their voices, it was like they were snakes, hissing, not human. I covered my ears, but they wouldn't stop. They didn't even get muffled. That was when I knew they were in my head. They said they were coming for me, they talked about me in third person, said they were coming for me in my sleep like some-like some horror movie stalker. They said they were getting closer and closer and that was when I screamed. And then I was here."

The scratching of the doctor's pen on paper is deafening and  Anna tries not to focus too hard on it. On this information, on her life, on who will see it.

"You're a strong religious believer? A Catholic?"

"Uh, yes. My family believes in that stuff. We used to go to Church all the time. Before I had too much work. Why is this important?"

"That doesn't matter for now. Do you think it's possible your stress from studying may have brought  on the hallucination?"

"I don't know. I guess so." She knows she is not being helpful. She does want to help but at the same time, she is worried what the woman will think of her, the more insistent she is that what she is seeing is real."

"And had you taken drugs, alcohol, anything of that sort before it took place?"

Anna also knows about the links between drugs and mental illness. She took biology in high school, though she did not continue it for further education, much of the topic of the effects of drugs, the way the brain works were covered in freshman and sophomore year. She knows how her family would react if she ever took drugs or even drank. Which was why she had always steered clear of anything in that area.

"I've never taken drugs. I-I had a cup of coffee that morning but I don't know-"

"And can you still hear them now?"

"No, they're not talking. They've stopped, like they've got what they wanted. Are my friends okay?" She begins to stand and then halts.The doctor raises a hand.

 "Your friends are fine. A little startled, but fine. I think these are all the questions I have for you now." Her voice appears to be warming up a little.

Anna taps her fingers on her knee and her eyes dart about.

"Anna, are you still listening?"

Anna nods again.

"It's time I explained what's happening right now. You're under observation. It's going to be like this for a few days as we try to diagnose you and decide whether we need you to move you to a more secure ward or if you are not harmful to your surroundings. There is a possibility that you will be able to leave after those few days but, given your current condition, it is a very slim chance. We will prescribe you some medication."

Anna stares, not quite looking at the doctor herself, but to the left of her forehead, at the metal door which is currently closed. She is surveying how difficult it will be for her to leave.

"I want you to know this is a safe place for you. That is what it is meant to feel like, in fact, most patients voluntarily sign themselves in. This is not a prison. We will give you a timetable later today and a list of rules."

She traces her hand over the deep lines in her palm. In little childrens' games, they used to say these lines determined your future.

"I'm beginning to think you're not entirely focusing on what I'm saying. I expect you are tired, and hungry. Breakfast will be in about ten minutes but right now, I must insist that we give you a few quick tests. Please will you follow me, Anna."

* * *

 

Once she has had the blood tests, she is free to go to breakfast. They tell her she is probably dizzy, needs something to eat. Anna is hungry yet something inside her tells her not to have anything.

After they measured her, noted down her height and weight, they had stuck a needle into her. Despite her pale skin showing the network of blue and red veins like snakes beneath her skin, so clear, it had always been hard for doctors to find one around the area of her elbow. She had had her injections at twelve, blood tests at fifteen and every time, they had searched for a suitable vein far longer than with the other girls. And this time, it was the same. A male doctor, one who wasn't Doctor Vizyak, fitted a strap onto her arm and still couldn't find anywhere. Eventually, he decided to take blood from her wrist. This hurt less than she anticipated and they pressed cotton wool over the puncture once it was all over.

She is taken through hallways, hallways that all look the same. She is to be living in this place and she wonders how she will ever find her way around here. Everything is just so white, it is blinding, matching her room. She looks over her shoulder with a touch of uneasiness. There is no one there, yet, but still, something makes her feel like she is being carefully watched.

The walls have been decorated with drawings. Maybe it is a way of cheering up this place, maybe they think the patients will smile as they pass the carefully painted flowers. They certainly don't cheer Anna up. It reminds her of the hospital she was in when she was seven, when she went to get her tonsils removed. But the lack of people and stretchers being wheeled down the corridors just adds to the feeling that she is being watched.

Then she is in what must be the cafeteria. It is a wider room than anything she has previously experienced in her time here, but not much of a cafeteria. There are tables, laid out for four people at each, some in the center of the room and some leaning against the wall. There are windows, few and at a quick glance, she can see a small side road. There is a bar in the middle as well, not like the one at school, there are no people to serve the food. All it contains is two toasters, some jelly jars and peanut butter, juices, milk and some cereal boxes.

There are people too, the other patients and nurses though it is hard to distinguish them as the patients are dressed in everyday clothes, not like the typical white robes she sees in movies that she too is currently wearing. But she can tell them apart. It is in the way they carry themselves, they are slumping as they walk and sit whereas, the nurses stand up straight, bearing over them. Their faces are blank as she expects her own is, focusing on some void that isn't there.

Doctor Vizyak has left now, leaving her under the care of others and she appears to have attracted their attention, they are all staring at the new arrival. She ignores them, mentally raising a middle finger at them.

_It will all be over soon._

She goes to the bar. There are no loaves of bread, only the slices, already laid out, ready to be put in the toaster. But that is stupid. Who knows who could have already touched it? She instead helps herself to a bowl and reaches for a cereal box, honey cheerios.

_Like your mom used to make you._

Anna halts, instead moving her hand along until it rests over a box of Special K with red berries. She sprinkles what she takes to be a serving into a bowl and pours some milk over the top. She then gets herself a glass of orange squash. Choice for tables to sit at is scarce and Anna as far as she can remember has never been good at talking to strangers. Not because she is impolite, but simply trying to get on with strangers, especially somewhere like this, is irrational.

She spots a table eventually, suitable enough. The only occupant so far is a dark haired girl with her head down on the table and breakfast untouched in front of her. A pen scratches along an obscured piece of paper which she grips tightly in pale hands.

Anna ignores her at first and takes her first spoon of the breakfast cereal, tasting the refreshing sweetness of the dried berries. Then she sighs. She won't make it far here if she doesn't talk to anyone.

"Hey," she says, softly to the girl.

The girl raises her left hand, the one not occupied with writing, holding up a finger, indicating that she had to wait and then lifts her head until her eyes are on level with Anna.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Ruby and judging by your clothes and the tiny fact I've never seen you here before, I'm guessing you're new."

Anna shrugs and takes a sip of her drink. "Yeah, I'm Anna. Anna Milton. I was admitted three days ago. What about you?"

"Me? I was admitted a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Probably longer ago than you could ever fathom, Red Berry."

Anna realizes that the nickname was directed at her, due to her breakfast food. Ruby's fresh face is set with a deep smile and at least this cheers her up a little.

"What are you working on?" Anna then asks, changing the subject.

"This?" Ruby holds up her sheet of paper which is lined with messy and smudged pen which at this small distance of about two feet, Anna cannot read. Her eyesight has never been good, not enough that she has ever had to wear permanent glasses though she has a pair for reading back in her dorm. Back in her college dorm. With her roommate, Charlie. She wonders if Charlie knows what happened to her. Of course she would, she was there when she had her breakdown, her and Cassie and Pamela and Jess and Becky. All of them had been there to see it, to see her go completely insane. What must they think of her now?

"This, my friend is poetry. It's a working progress but I need something to keep myself sane while I'm stuck in this hellhole. Or, you know, as goddamn sane as you can be to be locked up in the first place. Hey, you know what they should really serve for breakfast here? French fries."

It goes on like that for a while, for a good quarter of an hour, the two of them engaging in conversation like two girls socializing in a workplace or cafe, not a secure mental ward. The majority of what they discuss is Ruby's love of fries, as she calls them 'deep fried crack'. And not once does the topic of their environment come up. But then, just as they are about to put their plates away, a disturbance comes along.

"My brother, where's my brother?" someone asks in a deep groan. Both girls spin around. An attractive looking man, probably a good few years older than Anna, stumbles in. He is the only one in the room, besides her, dressed in hospital clothing. He catches her eye for a second, his are a sparkling green, which would be beautiful if they weren't crazed and bloodshot.

"Where's my brother?" he yells at a nurse. "WHERE IS SAM?"

He begins to howl and Anna covers her ears, it reminds her of the shrieking of the last couple of days, reducing the only noise inside her head to a few whispers. When she looks up again, she can see the man being taken away by a group of orderlies though now, he does not appear to be as violent as before, he is crying. They escort him from the room, leaving her free to listen to her surroundings again. Everyone seems excited about the little outburst just now and are talking in loud, excited whispers, much to the disapproval of the nurses who try to break up the conversations.

"That's Dean," Ruby says which gets her a glare from the nurse nearest them but luckily, he leaves. Anna did not ask her, but she still wants to know.

"What's wrong with him?"

"He came here a couple of weeks ago. No one really knows exactly what happened, but there are rumors, you know. He came with a crapload of scratches and there's a scar over his eyebrow. They say he was in an accident, probably a car crash."

"And who's Sam?" Anna questions though she is dreading hearing the answer.

"His brother. I'm guessing you got that from what he said. Things like that are rare here, but you're not a proper patient until you've seen one of them. Luckily it came on one of your first days. And, from the screaming I heard yesterday, this is your first day out of your room. That was you, wasn't it?"

Anna looks down at her lap and nods.

"Any point asking what you're here for?"

"Even if I wanted to, I couldn't tell you. I don't know, I don't think the doctors know either, although I guess they must have some idea."

"Most people go through fits when they arrive. It's this place, sucks the happiness out of you, like those goddamn dementors in Harry Potter. It just doesn't come in the form of skeletons in silver cloaks. It comes as unnaturally clean hallways smelling of hand sanitizer. Anyway, back to Dean. I don't know what illness he has. It seems like some sort of manic amnesia thing. The bottom line is that Sam died and Dean thinks he's still alive."

"So how long do most people stay here?"

"Depends what's wrong with them. Suicide attempts, depression, anxiety, they get out within about three months. That's what the majority of people are in here for. Eating disorders and bipolars, I'd say that's more like four or five. And then, people with manic episodes, from six months to a year, I guess. No one's been here more than two years, though. This ain't that serious a ward, you see. No one's meant to stay here long term because all of them can be treated. Except for me."

Before Anna can ask what Ruby is here for, Doctor Vizyak appears out of nowhere, startling both of them.

"Hello Anna, I see you've made a new friend. Are you alright so far?"

Anna nods, hoping it's enough to satisfy the doctor.

"Well, I'm sorry about that little disturbance. Some of the nurses reported you looked a little nervous?"

"I'm okay," Anna assures her.

"I have a pamphlet here for you about ward rules and a timetable." She hands Anna a booklet. The front cover shows a woman sitting in a chair with a nurse hovering over her. Both are smiling. And this illusion of life and the hospital almost makes Anna smile.

"Until twelve thirty, you get some free time in the rec room now, that will change once you have a psychologist. I've signed you into an afternoon discussion group. Now if both of you could line up by that wall with the others. Uh," she pauses like she has something important to say. But if she does, she doesn't say it. "Anna, I think I'll move you to the front of the line and Ruby, at the back."

* * *

 

Soon, Anna's first day in the institution is coming to an end. They have an early dinner, at six which is strange as she is not used to it and not particularly hungry by then. It had been sausages with sides of spicy wedges or non-spicy wedges (a poor excuse for fries, Ruby had said). Anna had the macaroni cheese, disgusting but looking better than everything else. Her parents tell her it's bad for her health, not to eat meat, seeing how thin she is, skeletal as her mother puts it. Her grandmother always says she needs some meat on her bones. Her outspoken grandmother, parent of her father. She bets that the elderly woman has a lot to say on the current subject of Anna. She probably blames her mother's parenting, she knows the two have a certain rivalry. She can almost hear her voice in her head.

They spend the morning in the rec room. It's this little room with two computers, beanbags on the floor and shelves of board games along with a television set, and a restricted choice of DVDs. They are not allowed to touch those for now, they are reserved for the evening movie, a girl named  Jo tells her. Anna spends the morning with Jo and another girl whose name she cannot remember, they play Clue and Monopoly, which lasts at least two hours with Jo being the last to go bankrupt.

Ruby is taken early on during the day, to see her psychologist, she waves a sad goodbye to Anna. It seems that many people are going in and out of the room for psychology appointments. Anna hopes to spend more time with Ruby when she returns after a half hour session, but then there is a morning discussion group which half of the patients attend, including Ruby.

It seems some of them prefer to stay in their rooms, although that is not an option for Anna, considering how little she has in there, along with the fact that it creeps her out, due to her having to live with the voices in there.

She sees no more sign of Dean, she at first assumes he is one of those within his room, but later discovers from an overheard conversation of two men playing a video game while making casual conversation, that Dean has been taken to something they refer to as solitary.

They have some silly rules here, no means of communication which she learns the hard way, a woman tries to sneak into the toilets with an iPhone she somehow managed to smuggle in and calls her sister. The phone is confiscated.

They are not allowed sharp objects, like on airplanes. That makes sense she supposes. They cannot make physical contact with other patients, a simple hand hold is enough to get you in trouble. No patients allowed in others' rooms and no recording equipment of any kind. And of course, no one is allowed to know your diagnosis unless you tell them yourself.

In the afternoon, she has to go to a discussion room too, she sits next to Jo and they go around the circle, saying each others' names and interesting facts about themselves. A woman with her head in her hands for the entire meeting, cries at one point and is taken out by a young and pretty nurse.

They make themselves targets, the doctor running the meeting says they get rewards if they complete them and Anna says that she will do some drawing when she gets back to the rec room. She is told about star charts, something that seems highly elementary school. They get given a reward for ten stars apparently.

In the evening, it is visiting hour. Of course, there is no one to see her. Doctor Vizyak tells her it is not time yet, while she is not quite stable, while her evaluation is not complete, but she suspects no one would come for her whether they were allowed or not. She watches a movie with some of the others who don't have people for them. She sits next to Ruby and yet, can't keep up with the storyline. The volume is up loud and though it blocks out the whispering in her mind, it makes her head hurt.

She enjoys spending time with Ruby. She is like a needle in a haystack, like imagining her surroundings are completely black and white and Ruby is in screaming color. She is the only shred of happiness in here. Anna likes how cheerful she is, how unaware she is, she just seems so normal. Anna wonders what could have condemned her to be trapped in here.

She goes to her room at eight thirty, the lights have to be out by ten.  She showers which is great at first, being alone, though she covers the doorway with the curtain in case someone is watching and keeps peering around every time a noise comes from the hallway. Soon a nurse comes to check on her. This is something she hates, a nurse appears to come and check she is fine every half hour, ticking her name on the register. They tell her to say her name and she does not give an answer at first, hoping she will go away, but she doesn't and Anna has to give in. She is given evening medication, for sleeping, they say. She swallows it dry and feels the pellet slither down her throat.

Then she gets ready to sleep. They give her a set of pyjamas which are just as white and clean as everything else around her but she wears it anyway. She checks the windows, checks they are secure. They are like hotel windows, she can open them about an inch before the strap of metal between the sill and window pains restricts her anymore. This makes sense at least as it means people cannot throw themselves from their windows which aren't even that high up anyway. It also means nothing could get it from the outside. Anna's only problem is that, if she were to be attacked in the night, she would not be able to escape. The door remains locked, too and she doubted herself shouting would do much as she figures that is normal for a place like this.

She tries to assure herself nothing will attack her. She takes heavy breathing, goes over a particularly catchy song in her head to block out the voices telling her they were coming for her.  She searches beneath the bed, as she did every night before. And as usual, there is nothing there. And then, she goes to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

"Colonel Mustard, kitchen, gun."

Ruby grins slyly, checking her cards and then swiftly slides one across the desk. Anna peers at it before handing it back and crossing Colonel Mustard off her list. It's been a week since Anna first arrived here and they are playing Clue again. The board games are the only thing here that stop her going completely insane. Maybe this is because they remind her of her childhood, before everything fell to pieces. When she and her brothers used to play this together on long Christmas Eves. Of course, there weren't enough pieces for all of them, which was why they used to take it in turns. Her, being one of the youngest, never had to sit out though.

"Anna, can I have a word with you please?" Doctor Vizyak stares down at her with her glasses on the end of her nose and her typical clipboard folded up in her crossed arms. A taller woman is standing beside her, looking incredibly smart in a gray suit and with her auburn hair pulled into a neat, little bun. Not a strand is out of place and Anna notices her rearranging it, not that it needs to look any more perfect. Her eyes are blue and overly large and her lips are pressed very tightly together, letting her only breath through her nose.

Anna gets up from the floor and looks gloomily at Ruby and Jo as they continue the game, Ruby rolling a three and a two on the die they use, and moving her character. She is playing as Miss Scarlet, saying it is only appropriate due to her name. Jo is Mrs White and Anna is Mrs Peacock. Anna has always been Miss Scarlet back at home as she gets to start first and she used to like the image of her on the card but she doesn't mind being Mrs Peacock now. Blue is her favorite color anyway.

"Anna, the good news is that your observation is over and we have decided that the best thing for you right now is to remain here."

Anna stares at her feet and thinks.

_They think this is good news? But at least you have friends here._

When she thinks friends, she means Ruby. Jo is cool and everything but she doesn't really know her that well. They haven't had discussions properly, they don't sit together at lunch. She thinks Jo feels uneasy about Ruby. They don't sit together in the evenings either and they only really play games together when Ruby is seeing her psychologist. This is the first time she has joined in when all three of them are here.

"Now, I have prescribed you some medication in addition to your nightly pills. You will be given this every morning. I think it will help you focus more on what is in front of you and block out the voices."

Suddenly, the question she has been dying to ask bursts out.

"How long will I have to say in here?"

The two women look nervously at each other and Anna sees some sort of non-verbal communication going on like they clearly know each other well.

"That depends on how your treatment works out. But I would estimate around nine or ten months. Now, Anna, I would like you to meet someone. This is Naomi. She is one of our psychologists here. From now on, you will have daily discussions with her, ten until ten thirty in the morning. It's all part of the process of you being able to cope with situations outside."

Then she takes something from within her shiny and rather professional looking, black handbag. It is a plastic file and Anna can see a selection of books and photos within.

"These are also for you. Your friend said you might want them. I believe she was your college roommate?"

Anna hates how she uses the word 'was'. It reminds her how she will never be her roommate again. Charlie will be taking her exams in about two weeks, graduating soon after. Even when Anna does get out of here, if she decides to take her exams, Charlie will already be gone.

Anna takes the file, planning on bringing it to her room later. Then she watches Naomi. She cannot look away, her piercing eyes seem to penetrate through her skin.

_She knows everything._

* * *

 

Naomi tells Anna to make herself comfortable, sitting her down in another of these rooms with the paintings on the wall. As she lies back on an orange beanbag (thank God this room has a little color in it), she sees one over her head, a painting of some Van Gogh style sunflowers.

"I see you're admiring the artwork," Naomi states, reading her like she is an open book. "From what I've heard from some of the nurses, you've been spending plenty of your time drawing. It says in your file that you were at college when the _incident_ happened. Are you an art student, Anna?" Constantly naming her seems to make her angle of addressing her more and more intimidating.

"No, I mean, I was a journalism student."

"Oh, that's quite a shame. I've heard you're quite the artist. Wouldn't it be nice if your drawings were hung up in here."

Anna shrugs, too afraid of actually saying no. She stares up at the ceiling. A window is fitted in up there, kind of a ceiling hatch, locked of course, she can tell from the lock of the handle.

"Come on, wouldn't that be nice?" Naomi asks in a high pitched voice. "I'm sure they're amazing." Then she sighs when Anna doesn't reply and looks away again.

"Now, Doctor Vizyak thinks it's possible you're either bipolar or schizophrenic. Have you heard those words before?"

Anna nods because she has, mainly from the brain topic in biology.

"Do you know what they mean?"

"Uh, I think that bipolar disorder means you sort of have mood swings, major mood swings and you sort of go from happy, to being really depressed and schizophrenia is when you have hallucinations."

Naomi smiles with her thin, pink lips.

"Those are the answers I would expect from most people, but, to tell you the truth, it is far more complex. People who suffer from bipolar disorder will often hear voices too, although far more commonly with schizophrenia. I think that the latter is the more likely option. However, to all mental illness, there is usually a build up. So I'm thinking that you, Anna, did not just suddenly go into that manic state." She looks at her, questioningly. "I'm thinking that some of the symptoms had been occurring for weeks, possibly months before and you didn't tell anyone because, to you, it seemed perfectly normal. Now, we will uncover these. We will work together to get deeper inside you. Doctor Vizyak wrote on your file that you are a Catholic-"

"She wouldn't tell me why that was important."

Naomi tilts her head. "It's possible that your voices, your hallucinations, can stem from religious beliefs. It's possible you had been seeing them before as well, but just turned them away as religious experiences and dreams."

Anna cannot believe she is hearing this. Do these doctors really think that she is that stupid? That some kind of angel or something could have visited her and she would have completely ignored it? Her family was religious but not like that. Not in the way she knew some people could be, where they made every single decision based on what the Bible says.

"No, this really was the first time I heard voices. I can't remember ever hearing them before. Do you think I wouldn't notice? Don't you think I'd go talk to one of my friends or a councillor? I'm not crazy. I mean, I am crazy in your terms, but I'm not one of those people who just ignore any unusual thing that happens to them. I tell my parents everything."

_No you don't. Not everything. You're lying, Anna._

"Anna, calm down. I'm just making a suggestion. It's a far more common situation than you would imagine. I think we'll move on from this, move onto your personal life."

_She wants to know about your personal life. None of your secrets are safe. She'll find out. You'll be a shame, a shame to your family, everyone will hate you. Ruby will hate you, Gabe will hate you, Cas will hate you._

Anna winces and blinks a few times, then sees that Naomi is still staring at her, suspiciously now.

"Are you alright, Anna? Would you like a little break, a glass of water to calm you down before we begin?"

"No thank you." Anna is going to be brave and face up to these nerves of talking, she is going to prove to Naomi that she is not as weak and not in control as she thinks she is.

"Tell me a little about your family."

Anna opens her mouth.

* * *

 

"How was your first meeting with the _sexologist_?" Ruby is waiting for her outside with her elbow pressed against the wall.

"What?"

"A little nickname for her. Not of my invention. I have to see another psychologist, this one guy, you'd think he should be a sports coach at his size and he always talks like he's about to shout and he's doing a really big job keeping it in. Every time he says anything to me, he wears this smug expression like he's so proud of himself that he can communicate with me. But others refer to her as."

"But why?"

"I dunno. Apparently it's just in the way she speaks. She makes weird, gross, sexual euphemisms. Notice any of that?"

"Uh, no."

"Really? Half the patients reckon she's trying to seduce them."

"No, sorry."

_You'd like that, wouldn't you, you little slut._

" You don't have to apologize. It's not like attracting the attention of a forty-something-year-old woman with bad teeth is a good thing.So what'd she ask you? Anything she thought was useful?"

Anna looks over her shoulder and checks the door is fully closed. "I told her about stuff at home, just general stuff. She told me it helped a lot. I told her about my family and she seemed interested anyway. And she said...she said she thought I had schizophrenia."

"Really? I never could have guessed." Anna cannot tell if she is being sarcastic or not. And then a thought came to her.

"Here, I'll show you?"

"Show me what?"

"Follow me." Anna checks that the corridor is clear and it is, everyone is in the rec room. Anna spares only a moment to wonder what Jo is doing without either of them there, but that passes. They sprint along the slippery floor, it is damp from having just been cleaned and Anna can still smell what she would describe as the stench of the disinfectant. Her white, oversized hospital shirt lifts up a little, showing a sliver of her flat stomach and she hastily pulls it back down. Ruby's gray T-shirt is a perfect fit and clings to her shapely chest and Anna notices that. She turns her head quickly away ash she makes eye contact with Ruby.

They reach Anna's room, and still, there is no one in sight.

"What a rebel, Anna. Inviting another girl in your room? I never saw that one coming."

Anna smirks and lets both of them in, before closing the door, behind her, quickly.

"You do realize we'll probably both get _consequences,"_ she says, mimicking quite a few of the nurses as they all seem to have the same short list of words in their heads. Ruby had joked earlier on that there was either a nurse, speech training camp or that they were all just robots controlled by one hive mind.

"If they catch us," she finishes.

"That's why they're not gonna catch us."

Just to be sure no one would look in and see the pair of them, Anna ducks both of them behind the bed and continues to talk in a whisper. She opens up the file of her possessions which she is still holding on to and begins to bring out her things. She places a copy of 'The Beginner's Guide To Journalism' beside her and then takes the first photo she sees.

"This is my family." The photo is landscape and wide, the two adults and eight grumpy looking children and teenagers lined up in a back garden, the boys in suits and the one girl in a pink dress which works no wonders on her hair which is a shocking red and tied in two plaits with matching pink ribbons.

"Is that you?" Ruby asks, pointing to her. She stands out from the boring black and white tuxedos.

"Yeah. How did you know?" Anna teases.

"It was a process of trial and error. My, my, my, Anna Milton, you never fail to shock. I never had you down as the fairy princess type."

"Oh no, I was more of a mermaid. Or an angel. Sometimes both, you know, with a little fish tail and enormous wings, and a halo. I was an angel in my Nativity play, just a year after this was taken probably. Not the angel Gabriel of course. I actually have a brother called Gabriel, that's him there." She points to the boy who looks the least smart. He has long, chestnut hair and the camera has made him look like he has red eyes. Other features that particularly stand out are a large forehead and a heavy chin.

"They always gave the role of Gabriel to a girl. He was so disappointed when he was a shepherd. No boys got to be angels-"

"Which I find sexist by the way, pushing boys into gender roles. They can be floaty and dreamy if they want and wear dresses, and I seem to recall the majority of angels in the Bible being men."

"You've read the Bible?"

"Nah. We never took religion seriously in my house ,though they took us to church for the carol and Easter services in middle school. But there was one poem I tried to write about angels and I thought, just for the fun of it, I'd go and look them all up. By the way, Anael totally sounded like a female angel to me but I didn't write it, some first century druggies did."

"Ruby," Anna gasps.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot you believed in it." She really does seem sorry so Anna continues.

"Anyway, this is the way my family was when everyone was still happy. They're rich Catholic, conservatives, they own a big accounting firm. It's a family business, dad wanted all his sons to work there. I think he wanted me to work there, too, but he didn't mind too much when I went off to get my journalism degree. He said it was better than when I wanted to be a photographer."

"What happened then?"

"I was fourteen, fifteen, I loved taking pictures for my school magazine and some of these girls used to pay me to take headshots of them. I was pretty proud of myself, made thirty dollars. Anyway, I told dad I wanted to be a photographer. He shouted, said it was a stupid career, that I'd end up completely broke, what was I going to do, asked me how I was gonna raise my grandchildren. I never spoke of that again."

"Whoah, talk about uptight, dude."

"Yeah, I know. But I couldn't say that. They're my parents."

"It's your own life, red berry, but let me tell you, no parents should be that controlling and degrading and get away with it. Go on."

"Anyway, the tall one, there? That's Michael. My oldest brother. He's thirty two now, almost ten years older than me. His birthday's in September."

"And what's he like?"

Anna shrugs her shoulders, once again.

"Come on, you can tell me."

Anna takes a deep breath, before saying "He's a pompous, vain prick."

"There it is, let it all out," Ruby applauds, quietly though, of course.

"He was top student at school, got all As and everything and went of to college, got a law degree and became a lawyer. Of course, my parents were proud. I mean, it made them some money, I hear he's doing pretty well now, though he only stops by for the big festivals. Anyway, this means, they need a new person to take over the firm after they're, you know, dead. This is where it started to go bad."

She points to the next boy onwards in the photograph. He is shorter than Michael by about an inch and his hair is a sandy blonde, such a contrast to Michael's raven black and Anna's fiery red.

"His name is Luke. No one really knows what happened with him. I don't think he wanted to work for the firm, but then, neither did Michael and he got away with it. He was a year and a bit younger than Michael and just turned seventeen. I was nine. I heard shouting one night, I looked at my alarm clock and it said it was three in the morning. I heard mom say what a disgraceful son he was, I heard a slap, and then, he was gone, just like that. None of us were allowed to mention his name again or both my mom and dad would go mental and start yelling about how Luke was dead to them. And I just didn't get it."

"Wow, sounds like they're the ones who deserve to be in here, not you. What about him?"

"You mean, what about her." Anna corrects her.

The young preteen they are looking at now must be about twelve and has shoulder length, black hair.

"I don't get it." Ruby shakes her head and then it dawns on her.

"That was when she was a boy. Her name is Ela, with one 'l', short for Raphaela. But she used to be Raphael. My parents had a thing for giving their kids Biblical names. I don't know why they went for Anna for me, though. When she was fourteen, I think, she came out to them. And it was your typical Christian parent reaction. They didn't shout, not like with Luke, but they laughed at her. I swear, it was terrible. To be fair, this happened before Luke so I guess his case just pushed them over the edge. They told him...her it was a phase, she asked for help, to make a transition, she said she needed to see someone."

"I can see where this story's going." Ruby crosses her legs.

"They took her to see all these religious, biased therapists. They told her she was selfish, that God doesn't make mistakes, that she was seeking attention. And our house, they kind of drove it into a state of constant depression. I wanted to support her and I did and she was so upset, I talked with her every night, but mom and dad _could not know_." She emphasizes these words and Ruby realizes just how traumatizing her childhood must have been.

"In the end, she told them that she was a boy. She said she just made a mistake. And when she was eighteen and fully grown, she moved out with the money she had inherited now, got a job as my parents said she couldn't work for the firm. She made the transition, happily, but that's just another child they won't discuss. Anyway, for who was gonna take over the business, the next two were hopeless cases. Gabriel and Balthazar, that's them." She points them out, too.

"They aren't twins, but you'd think they were. They're a year apart in age. They always mess around together, always got in trouble for their pranks in high school. They snatched up some SATs, it wasn't good enough. Gabe is a janitor. Balthazar's doing better, he's an antique collector. It's not bad enough that they were disowned, but I can't say the family was happy. Finally, they hit success with Gadreel, he's the brother before me. He's obedient, hard working, serious, everything you want in a man of business."

"I feel like there's a 'but' coming here"

"But," she breathes. "He's gay."

Ruby opens up her arms. "So?"

"That's what most people would think. But not my family. If they found out, it would be nuclear war, total disaster. Michael doesn't know, only the fantastic four do."

At Ruby's narrowed eyes, she tries to explain.

"It's what we call us, Gabe, Balthazar, my twin brother, Cas, and me. Four superheroes and one's a hot woman who can vanish into thin air. We're the only one's who know about his boyfriend and I don't think that'll ever change. He's vice director or whatever we're supposed to call it, of one of the biggest accounting firms in Ohio. And, though I don't think it would be a big deal, mom and dad would. I know them."

"That's the problem."

"What?"

"With religious groups. They use the Bible or any other holy piece of crap they have, to argue their own beliefs. They say stuff like 'homosexuality is a sin' and everything, but isn't love the most important thing in existence? Isn't God meant to be benevolent, or whatever? That's why I'm not a believer, because so many of the other believers are assholes. Also, the Bible says divorce can be punishable by being stoned to death, but you see enough of them doing it, so basically, they're just a bunch of hypocrites."

Anna does not say anything for a long time, her nostrils flaring. Then, she speaks.

"I've been wanting to say that for a long time."

"Really? I thought you were one of them. I thought you were gonna get all offended, I thought I went too far. At least I know we agree."

"No, I don't agree with everything you say. I just think we should love all, I think we should look at the passages that contradict each other and see which comes out on top instead of picking and choosing for whichever suits us best. I think we need a modern Bible, or just a holy book for the entire world to read, one we can all agree on. An updated version, an unbiased version."

"Amen to that. So who's gonna write this sacred book, red berry?"

"Not me."

"Not me, either. No one's gonna trust a person like me who's spent seven years in a mental ward."

"Seven years?" Anna exclaims.

Ruby smiles. "I bet that wasn't what you were expecting at all."

She is light. She is beauty. She is every goddamn metaphor Ruby can think of. She understands her, they both understand each other, with their senses of humor, their acknowledgement of pain and suffering, and the idea that neither of them are the pretty face they seem to be. Because Anna is nothing like that girl she saw a week ago, quiet, innocent, in denial of the real reasons to why she was there for her own fear. And though Ruby had liked that girl, she prefers the new girl she sees sitting before her.

She puts her head in her lap and Anna stiffens, but almost immediately after, she feels her grow calmer, her breathing returning to normal as she runs her hands through her hair. Anna sticks up her photos on the wall, setting that special one of her perfect little family, on a frame on her bedside table.

They do not get much time after that although both of them want to, with their unspoken, unofficial relationship. But soon, Ruby must leave, as they hear footsteps down the next corridor and she just has time to sneak out before a man with a frown on his face comes and asks Anna why she was in here with the door closed, then he ticks her off on the register and leaves again.

Late that evening, when no one is watching, Ruby steals her for a secret kiss near the cafeteria. Anna's heart jumps in those few moments as they are together, locked in a beautiful embrace.


	3. Chapter 3

"Well, I have to say, Anna, you have made so much progress since you arrived here. Cookie?"

Anna shakes her head as Naomi holds out a friendly plastic plate of chocolate chip cookies. She has been here a month, a month of hell, except for her time with Ruby. She is so beautiful, so amazing, so smart, yet their time together is restricted. She cannot let the nurses pick up on their relationships. Relationships between patients are dangerous as she has heard from a range of stories told to her by various others who arrived before her.

One new patient arrived after her. It was a young girl, probably about the right age to be starting college soon as it was now almost July and the school year would have ended. From what she knew, the girl suffered serious depression, she had called a suicide hotline just before she tried to end her life. Anna had had some conversations with her recently. She comes from a good, Christian family, just like her very self, but that's pretty much all she knows about her background. People tend to share very little information about themselves.

 Anna supposes she sees herself in the teenager, whose name is Claire, even though they do have very little in common. Claire seems to have quite a punk style. You can see multiple punctures through her ear from where she has been asked to remove many piercings and her blonde hair has been all brushed over to one side. Otherwise, she has a very sweet and childish face and Anna wants to tell her to stop trying to grow up, that it will do her no good.

In addition, a new nurse with a round face and shiny, brown hair has come. Anna has decided she likes her. She is less patronizing than the others. She tells jokes and appears to be very good with Dean. This is the same Dean, who screamed on her first day, who since then, has been in solitary twice, has seemed more calm these past two weeks. His hospital clothes have been switched for plaid and a brown leather jacket as Anna's have for her favorite white, V-necked shirt and a green denim jacket. However, she was not allowed anything with drawstrings. He was back to hitting on the nurses, how she presumes he would have been before the accident and his bruises have almost completely faded. But some scars never heal.

"Another thing I've picked up on is that you're spending a lot of time with a girl named Ruby."

Anna's eyes dart up at the name. "Yeah," she says.

"Erm, yes, well-" Naomi suddenly goes from being completely in charge of the situation to a state of nervousness. Maybe she expected she would be able to get Anna to be a bit more responsive than she had been with Doctor Vizyak. She has been questioned on this topic a few times already, always just nodding, mumbling to them that they're just good friends. And that's the way everyone's going to stay thinking.

"I'm not sure it's such a good idea you spend so much time with her right now."

Anna glanced up, only to find Naomi's laser eyes on her again. "Why?"

"Well-" She readjusts her hair. "Ruby's not one of my patients so it's not really my duty to talk about her. If she wants to tell you her diagnosis, that's her own business, otherwise it would be telling you something very private about her, without her consent."

"But why should I stay away from her? I mean, she's here too and I have to talk to someone here and she seems so much more...normal than everyone else."

"Anna," she says with impatience. "We don't define people in here as normal and not normal. We say that they face more challenges than others."

"Fine, Ruby faces less challenges than everyone else here."

"Oh no, I'd say she faces more challenges than most of them. I just think it's best that you stay away from her otherwise it could end badly."

Anna knows she isn't going to listen to a word of what Naomi tells her despite her having had many more years of experience in psychology than herself, who had only taken one small class in her first year at college due to fascination in gender studies. She can imagine what Ruby would say about listening to her psychologist. "Never trust anyone with hair like that, red berry." Ruby's nickname for her hasn't ceased to exist yet, despite her trying to eat a range of cereals every day. And she is quite glad about that too.

At this point, Naomi tries to change the subject a little before Anna can ask any more questions about why exactly she should stay away from her only friend here. She comes up with a theory about how maybe a part of her therapy is to make sure she is sad all the time and for her to always remember where she is, hoping they can punish the mental illness away.

"As you know, your current diagnosis is schizophrenia. How are the voices, are they still there?"

"Yeah, I can still hear them. I think the medication is helping them quieten down though." This is true. In her first few days, the constant whispering in her head was always there, most of the time she could overlook it, but it's hard to ignore the pure hatred streaming from the back of your own head. Sometimes she hears it now, though not the entire time. For example, she cannot hear it now, but it seems to strike at the most ordinary of times, like when she is eating her favorite, warm chocolate cake on the one day they serve it alongside Ruby's favorite french fries: Friday.

"And what does it say to you?"

Anna lets her head fall to the back of the chair. "Stuff. Just random stuff. Sometimes I don't understand, I can't make out the words. They're all in a jumble like I'm hearing people's thoughts. Except, they're kind of aggressive. Sometimes I hear things like 'kill' and 'die' and 'murder' and a whole list of things which all have the same bottom line; I'm gone at the end of them."

"Go on."

"And then, other times, I hear them repeating medical words over and over. 'Schizophrenia, schizophrenia, schizophrenia, trying to remind me of who I am and why I should be ashamed."

It is not just this they say to make her feel ashamed of herself.

"And then I hear my mom's voice. She says she's ashamed of me, everyone's ashamed of me. She says I'm worthless, an accident, or rather, she says _Anna's_ an accident. 'Cause it's not me she's speaking to directly. There's a man she's having a conversation with and he sounds all professional and businesslike and I know I should be scared of him. He says in this slow voice 'I'll take care of her'." She lets her voice go as low as it can as she does this impression and Naomi looks on, intently.

"Interesting. Anna, I need you to let me in. I need your help so I can get deeper inside of you."

Anna stifles a laugh by covering her mouth, and fakes a cough. Now it has been pointed out to her, she can't help but notice how much of Naomi's vocabulary sounds like a sexual euphemism. Luckily, so far, it had not seemed like Naomi was trying to seduce her on purpose.

"Tell me about your schedule."

"My what?"

"What you do every evening. Once you leave the rec room. Tell me what you do. Often, many people suffering from mental illness can be quite ritualistic, quite inflexible with their time schedules. So tell me what you do."

"I, uh, I come into my room and shut the door," Anna begins. "I change in the bathroom, into my pyjamas."

"What type of pyjamas?"

"Well, it's not really pyjamas," she says, worrying she may get into trouble for this. "We're not allowed anything with drawstrings, but my friend gave a selection of my clothes. It's an old T-shirt with Ariel on the front, from the Little Mermaid. It was my favorite Disney movie as a kid and I bought it at Disneyworld when I was nine. It was a few sizes too big, but now it fits perfectly. My friend, my roommate, Charlie, she used to tell me I looked like a modern day, hipster Ariel. She said everything was perfect: my hair, my clothes. She used to call herself Merida, from Brave, because she has red hair, too. We used to go to costume parties as them."

She fears she has gone into too much detail.

"And there's a pair of loose leggings, as well. And then, I brush my teeth."

"What make of toothpaste?"

"I was given some Colgate, but I prefer to use just water."

Naomi raises her eyebrows.

"Oh, I do brush hard enough, until there's blood and everything."

"But why, Anna? Why don't you use the toothpaste given to you? Do you dislike the taste? Didn't you think to ask for something else?"

"I don't mind the taste," she says slowly. "It's just, someone might have sneaked in and put, I don't know, something bad in the tube. Like poison, or seafood. I'm allergic to seafood."

"Why would someone put something in your toothpaste?" Naomi asks with concern and it's real concern, not the type she is paid to feel.

Anna shrugs. "I don't know."

"And did have you only had this worry since you arrived here? Were you worried only mental patients would want to do this to you?"

"No. I-" She thinks back. "I'd say I probably stopped brushing my teeth about four, five months ago."

"Was there anything in particular that made you think this way?"

"No. I just sort of, thought of it myself. The idea just came to me one night."

"Back when you were in college, what did you tend to do in the evenings?"

Anna finds it strange that her psychologist is focusing so much on her pre-hospitalization  time, particularly when she was at college. And yet, she thinks she knows why. The toothpaste habit, she had never thought of it to be unusual before, she had always passed it off as being a girl who cared about safety taking extra precautions. But normal people didn't worry that people were spying on them the entire time, they didn't think that people were trying to poison them every time they ate.

She spills everything then.

"I would go back to my dorm after classes were over."

"What time?"

"Uh, five, maybe."

"But didn't you have parties to go to? Did you never get invited?"

"No, I got invited. I just don't like interacting with people I don't know."

"Why?"

"Well, they could be spying on me. They could be spies."

"Why would you think people would be spying on you? Who for?"

"I don't know."

_Oh, so you're lying now. You know perfectly well why they'd be spying on you._

Naomi is speedily noting all this down on her clipboard with her arm shaking so fast, Anna can see the ink sprawling all over the place.

"So what do you do in your dorm?"

"I get into bed. I get changed."

"You get straight into bed?"

"I look under the bed and find something for dinner."

"You look under the bed?"

"To check if anyone's hiding in my room to watch what I'm doing."

_Don't trust her. Don't tell her anything. She's after you. She's a spy._

She pauses, then says "I check in the closet, too."

"Yes, and what do you normally have for dinner?"

"I buy some ready meals. Macaroni cheese, stuff like that. I just put it in the oven."

"But you could go to your college cafeteria. You must have had some friends you could sit with, you wouldn't have to talk to any strangers other than the people serving you."

"But they could have touched the food and-"

"You're worried people could have poisoned it." Naomi cuts her off, already guessing what she is about to say.  "So what do you do for food here? That's served in a cafeteria."

"I have cereal. It's mass produced-and shared by lots of people so they won't try to poison me with that."

"But what about at lunch and dinner?"

"Ruby tries to food for me before I take it."

"And she doesn't find this strange?"

Anna shakes her head.

"So what did you do once you were in bed? Did you go straight to sleep?"

"Oh no, I would do some studying, some work. Maybe watch something on my laptop."

"On your laptop?"

"Yeah. There are these sensors in the TV, they feed what I'm watching to the government, but anyone could hack into. I was tired of being watched so I stream Disney movies and sometimes old episodes of friends from my computer."

"Is this a real statistic?"

"I think so. I heard it somehow. I just don't know where."

"Alright." Naomi takes a few minutes to look over her paper, signalling that Anna should stop talking. So she just sits there, she plays with her fingers, tapping them against her chair, letting the irritating tapping take up all her concentration. And then, Naomi places her clipboard on the floor.

"Anna, you are aware that these are quite unusual. For most people. But you're not most people. I'm going to have to tell Doctor Vizyak about this. To those around you, these ideas may make you seem paranoid. But to schizophrenics, having such delusions, they seem perfectly normal. It sounds to me like the voices were in your head, telling you what to do before you could even hear them. They target you with the same ideas, people want to spy on you, to hurt you, because you feel like you've failed in some way."

_That's all you ever do. You fail at everything._

"So I'm going to set you a challenge. We have to get you out of these habits. Anna, getting rid of this mindset is one of the steps to you being able to live a normal life without your schizophrenia affecting you. This week, I want you to stop looking under the bed. I can tell you that no one would be under your bed, we do registers before of all the patients, and I'm sure the staff think you're entitled to your privacy. I also think you should try to have some toast at least one day a week. Let's say, tomorrow? Cookie?"

She has already asked her that, but Naomi now dangles the plate in front of her face, a forceful expression in her eyes. And Anna knows what she wants without it being made vocal, and she takes one of the disc shaped pieces of dough. She weighs it in her hand and after looking at it suspiciously, she tries a bite, which, of course, Naomi writes down, too.

"I emailed your parents yesterday."

The tension builds as Anna's two index fingers press against each other, the surface of the skin turning even whiter than usual as all the blood rushes down another blood vessel.

_Disappointment, waste of space, shameful, useless, futile, selfish, incompetent_

"Anna!"

Her shoulder is being shaken and stars dance before her eyes as the darkness fades, the voice replaced by Naomi's usually stern, but currently soft and calming, voice.

"You fell out of your chair, Anna." She now maintains her professionalism and sits back up straight as Anna is now perfectly able to stand and get back to her chair. "You were covering your ears. What did you hear?"

"Just...voices."

She eyes her, carefully. "I'm going to have us finish the session a little early today. I'll see you tomorrow. And remember, our sessions now start at four."

_Hopeless, ineffectual, weak, inadequate-_

"Hey, sexy." Ruby is standing in the corridor before her, barring her way. Ruby has always waited after her sessions, and vice versa. They are glad to spend as much time as possible together.

"You ready to return to the rec room?" And then she sees the fear in Anna's eyes.

"Whoa, Red Berry. I wouldn't have been so jokey if I'd known you were upset. What did the sexologist do to you this time?"

"It's fine. I'm alright. Just a little-I'm thinking about my family a lot."

"And how much you miss them?"

"Yeah, something like that." And then she thinks to ask a question. "Hey, Ruby, do you think I'm strange?"

"Of course I think you're strange, otherwise, why would you be here? But I'm strange, too. Everyone here's strange. Yes, including the nurses, and the psychologists, even the lunch ladies. Everyone in the world has something strange about them. It's just that most of them got the potluck, the strange things they do aren't considered strange in society. It's the same as with beauty, who decided glasses and curly hair was unattractive? In fact, inspiration. Once I finish my latest poem, I'm writing that one. I'll call it 'How To Be Normal'. Or better yet, I'll name it when I've finished it. Do you fancy playing the Sims?"

* * *

 

Ruby slides the disc into the drive and they sit and wait as it loads up. The supply of games the ward has to offer does have the Sims 4, but as Ruby put it, "on the latest game, they don't even have goddamn swimming pools. How am I supposes to take out my anger?" So instead, they put in the Sims 3.

They squeeze together on to the chair. It is orange, one of those makes that you would find at an office desk, that can spin around so that you don't get an ache in your neck if someone tries to talk to you from behind. The lining is coming off, revealing a thick layer of sponge below, and Anna pulls some more at the thread, letting her look deeper and deeper into its core.

They make a family. It is like any normal family. There is a mother, a father, two kids. Except, they're aliens. Ruby makes their skin blue, she lengthens the ears and makes the eyes as large as they can go. They are now the 'Zug' family. Anna chooses each name, making each more hilarious and sounding like something out of the Stone Age. They build them a house too, the Zug family have not been allocated much money to get started, but Ruby knows what to do about this. She types in a cheat in the blue bar along the top of the screen, 'motherlode' and their Sims end up with fifty thousand more dollars, or as the game refers to it, 'Simoleons.'

And that's when they begin to die. Meep, the father who Ruby insists is more turquoise than blue, drowns in their back swimming pool. They build walls around it so he cannot escape and watch as he sinks below the surface. The mother, Fong, has the trait 'Technophobe', so, after tinkering around with the incredibly cheap television set the family own, which had been conveniently placed over a patch of water made in the bathroom, she ends up, electrocuted, and they watch as the grim reaper rounds up her now yellow and translucent ghost, leaving a tombstone in her place.

This seems to lead the family, which now consists of the two children, into a state of depression. They break down crying as they walk across the screen, at random points.

"Why don't some social workers come for them now?" Ruby asks as she leads the son, Bob, to his fiery death, causing both of them to giggle and then cover their mouths as a Nurse came over. "The kids can't live alone."

The Nurse makes a tutting noise, she tells them that this is not how the game should be played, that using it for this could be triggering to other patients and that she may take away their computer privileges unless they stop killing off sims which, to no length, can Ruby stop laughing.

So they start again with a new family. Ruby tells Anna to leave her alone, she has a surprise sim to make which she thinks the other girl will like. And when she returns, she finds a thin faced, pale, young adult sim with the brightest orange hair she has ever seen, falling down the girl's shoulders which are clad in what appears to be a green hoodie.

Ruby changes to the tab that shows their personality details.

"It's you," Anna can see the likeness, though she feels the hair may be a little exaggerated. The sim, named Anna Milton, has been given five traits, Artistic, Vegetarian, Brave, Good, Insane.

"Vegetarian? How did you know? I never told you."

"Figured it out on my own. You never touch meat, I try your food daily and never once have you had the chicken pie or the beef lasagne. And the only reason I can think anyone wouldn't eat the meat option on Mexican day is because they're vegetarian. I mean, those tacos are delicious."

Anna is about to tell her about how she should not taste her food for her anymore. She decided to save that bundle of news for later.

"I don't tell anyone. All my relatives have always been like 'if you don't eat meat, you'll die', like they know anything. In Biology, they told us that being vegetarian was the safer option for anyone. You get more energy because it comes directly from the plant instead of from the animal, from the plant."

"So do you not like meat?"

"No, it's-it's just every time I used to eat meat, when I was a teenager that is, I could almost see the spirit of the dead animal. Not see it really, I just kind of felt that the dead animal was angry with me, I always got the idea that-it's nothing." Then, she frowns at the last trait. "Insane?"

"Don't worry, it's just a joke," Ruby assures her. "I thought it would be funny with what you said earlier. You can give me that, too, if you want."

"You want me to make you?"

"Sure. We're going to make a family on this game. I'm going to be a writer and you're going to be my rich, artist wife."

It seems like a forward move, Ruby saying that their characters will be married, even though she knows that is what she wants. But she doesn't say a word on it.

She makes Ruby, an incredibly beautiful sim as far as sims go, dressed all in black and with the traits: Friendly, Charismatic, Good Sense of Humor, Evil (because Ruby insists she wants to be a villain) and Insane.

As Anna is swiping her finger around on the mouse, Ruby finds her hand under the desk. The moment is golden, where a nurse cannot see, she lets her stubby nails run over Ruby's, which are not long, but still longer than she has them, painted with silver polish.

 They are just about to adopt a baby when the phone rings. Both of them know not to answer it, a nurse will do that for them, and both of them know to expect it won't be for them. But this time, it is different.

"Anna Milton," the nurse calls. It is the pretty, friendly one, the one who gets on well with Dean, and she hands the receiver to her. Anna pushes it through her ginger locks to reach her ear.

"Hello?"

"Anna?" She recognizes the perky, high pitched tone.

"Charlie?" Her heart fills with delight.

"Oh my God, I'm so glad I got through to you! I've been wanting to call for ages, but your parents said you were really sick, that I better stay away." So she had been in touch with Mr and Mrs Milton.

"I was worried you would be too sick to even talk, but you're fine."

"Yeah, I may be in a locked ward, but I can still answer a phone."

They go on, Charlie chatting constantly, barely letting Anna get in a word, she can imagine the girl now, sitting at home, scrolling down Tumblr or checking out updates on her favorite Harry Potter fansite, while holding her legs up on her bed, shoeless and wearing a Black Widow or Princess Leia T-shirt.

"Thanks for calling, anyway. How'd your final exams go?" She tries to disguise the tinge of bitter jealousy in her voice.

"Oh yeah, about that." She pauses and Anna can tell she is trying to soften whatever great achievement she made. "I passed all my exams. I got my Bachelor in Computer Science."

"Great."

"There's an open part time job at Google, I'm thinking of taking that, while working to get my Masters, maybe later a Doctorate."

_Look at Charlie. Look how lucky she is. And look at you. Look at where you are, you pathetic little piece of dead meat._

"That's fantastic."

"I hope you get out of there soon. Maybe you can come back to college and retake your final year, maybe try to get your Journalism degree. I'll see you as soon as you get out."

_No she won't. You're going to be stuck in here forever, like Ruby._

Anna feels a nurse hovering over her shoulder, about to tell her that she has had her five minutes and that other people need to use the phone now. She says goodbye, puts it down and turns back to Ruby.

"Who was that?"

"My college roommate, Charlie."

"Lucky you."

"Yeah. Lucky me."


	4. Chapter 4

Anna knows from the second she walks into the cafeteria that something is different. It's in the atmosphere, the shift in reality, in her reality. Everything still appears the same to the naked eye, the floor is spotless with a silver-white sheen, the chairs are lined up neatly at their tables, patients are marching their way up to the silver bar in the middle. But maybe it's just her paranoia, maybe it's the fact she picks up every small detail of everything going on around her.

The room still gives her that shivering, that low feeling, but it has been extended, it is heavier on her shoulders. She has no idea how to explain it, she just knows that not everything is in place.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Claire holding something under the table.

It has been nearly two months now, seven and a half silent and lonely weeks, the only comfort being her small selection of friends who had that one little thing in common with her, who shared that one problem, Ruby, Jo and Claire.

Charlie has called nearly every night, Anna has envisioned every precious minute of their conversation for the hours ticking by until phone calls are allowed. But at the same time, every minute makes her heart throb and ache with the cruelty she knows she shouldn't have. She is always hearing the latest news on the Charlie Bradbury front, how wonderful it is with no classes, how her and a bunch of friends drove all the way to the border between the States and Canada and camped out there, how she got offered a job at Richard Roman Enterprises in the IT department, how she's reconsidering that job at Google, her plans for next Comic Con and every great movie she's been to seen alone since Anna has been gone. But she knows the right thing to do is be happy for her.

She winces as she takes a piece of toast, knowing that nurses are noting down exactly what she eats, her eating habits made into a neat, bullet point list. They hover over her at lunch, if she asks Ruby to take a bite before her, they sigh and move away, everything she does to make herself feel more secure is just another black hole, trying to such her away from her walk to freedom.

_You never know who could have touched that. You never know what they could have put on it. That girl over there. She could have spat on it. She could have a cold._

Dammit. She is listening to the voices again, which of course means that she is obligated to report it to Naomi. But she can skip her goals this one breakfast. She pours herself some red berry special K, lets the thick, white liquid make the pieces of dried fruit in her bowl rise and turning them soggy. And then she goes to find Ruby.

That is when she identifies the thing that is disrupting the room's atmosphere. Ruby has her back up straight, her nose is held high yet her eyes do not make contact with anyone. She has brushed her hair back in a hairstyle unfamiliar to Anna, a ponytail that leans slightly more to the left than right and hangs lower than the way most girls would tie theirs. All strands of hair have been neatly combed backwards, making her bizarrely resemble Naomi. Her clothes are still black, but not the usual jackets and tight, worn out jeans. She wears a loose top that could pass as a dress, the neckline in a small arc that exposes the littlest amount of chest possible. And most odd of all, she has no poetry in front of her, her one pastime for when her girlfriend is not present.

She does not even regard Anna properly when she sits down opposite her, only looking away from the empty space to meet her hazel eyes when she addresses her.

"Hey Ruby."

"Go away," she demands.

"Excuse me?"

"Just go. Leave me alone."

"Ruby, I don't understand. Have I done something wrong?"

"Just leave me alone." She is so different, her posture, her voice is high pitched, more suitable for a young girl than a woman of twenty three.

Reluctantly, she leaves and takes a seat beside Claire who she has caught watching the discussion unfold between the couple.

"Girlfriend trouble?" Claire asks with her bright blue eyes in complete focus. She fiddles with her T-shirt while her other hand remains under the table.

"Oh, no, she's not my-" she stutters, the small bit of flesh that covers her cheekbones turning a sharp maroon.

"Don't treat me like I'm dumb. I know chemistry when I see it. You and her have been together since before I arrived. You're so obvious. You'd better tone it down, or else one of the nurses will catch on. Or worse, Doctor Vizyak."

Anna cannot believe she is taking this advice, advice from a girl more than five years younger than her, to heart. Claire seems like she knows her way up and down the complex streets that are life, but at the same time, she will be more stubborn, more set on her own ideas than willing to listen to anyone else's.

"Looks like you two were getting pretty into it back there."

"I don't know. Do you think she's angry with me?"

"Dunno. Looks to me like she's having some sort of an off day, needs some space to herself, that kind of thing. You should probably leave her be." She leans in closer as she whispers "it's probably her time of the month."

Anna chortles. "Isn't that quite a sexist view to have?"

"Hey, I'm just telling you what you want to hear."

"So you promise you won't tell anyone, you know, about us?"

"Are you kidding? We all have our secrets."

It is then that Anna sees how much focus she has on whatever she is concealing beneath the surface, she beckons for her to take a look. Clasped in Claire's right hand is a Christmas tree ornament, an angel, with a little golden wire halo attached to its cloth head with beads for eyes and a sequin skirt.

"My dad got this for us, the Christmas before he left. Before my mom went insane, too and left me alone, before I was shipped off to the care home."

The last treasured memory from a broken home.

"You were in a care home?"

"Yeah, have you seen this place? It's a whole load of rejects. I know this might sound offensive, but why else would they be so unhappy with their lives?"

"I hardly think it's like that for me."

"Yes it is. Deep down, you know you're one of us rejects as well."

Anna tries to brush off the severity of her words. "I thought you were going to have a phone under there. Why would you hide a doll?"

"Of course they wouldn't tell you. You're an adult, they wouldn't expect you to have a doll. But to them, I'm a kid, even though I'm only a few years younger than you. They reminded me very clearly when I was first being checked in here, that we're not allowed dolls or toys of any kind in case they have germs. Really, they just try to stop us being in touch with our childhoods. So much for those assholes trying to make our lives easier."

* * *

 

Nearly a whole day has passed before Anna decides to go and look for Ruby, before she decides that this loneliness is unbearable. It isn't like she can't live without her girlfriend. She loves playing games with Jo, that morning they had gone through the game console box, hoping to find Call of Duty where they could take out their anger at Doctor Vizyak. Of course, the hospital would not allow anything so violent and they ended up stuck with Mario Kart. Still, they play it, Anna as Baby Mario because she loves the noises he makes when he falls off the edge of the road (Gabriel does an extremely accurate imitation of him).

She loves Claire, too. She loves remembering her rebellious teenager phase or at least wishing she had a rebellious teenager phase. Claire shows her music online, it is a lot more cheery than she expected, given what she had been expecting was goth bands, covered in piercing and screeching into microphones. Anna has always liked a little bit of country, a little bit of the old jazz her grandmother used to play her from the nineteen fifties. She finds one of her favorite music editors, an account listed as 'dreamsof2eras'. They blend these two styles, or occasionally, jazz and classical music. It always used to calm her down, help her concentrate when she was revising or working.

As phone calls start coming in after they get back from dinner, the nurses start to set up a movie. They are never allowed anything rated above a PG-13, sometimes they are limited to just PGs. Tonight's movie is Toy Story 3, they set it up and project it onto the huge screen hanging from the wall. Anna loves this movie, she knows it was originally intended for young children. When her brothers used to make fun of her for watching it, she would say "I'm young at heart."

She has seen it so many times though that there is no need to silently mouth each line, today. Checking Ruby is feeling fine is more important. Of course, the nurses will have done that job every half hour to be precise, but she doubts they really know her. She doubts they know anything about her personality, if they could see if there is anything wrong with her. But she knows differently to them.

As the opening music starts up, Anna gets up and makes her way out of the room, no heads turning to watch her leave, one doctor giving her a quizzical glance and quickly inquiring where she is going. She tells them she is going to read a book in her room. By now, this is quite normal, her going to bed early, although most of the times she has used that excuse, it has been to spend time with Ruby. She wonders how much longer they can carry on playing this game, of sneaking into each others' rooms, of breaking the rules. Claire said people are starting to notice, but can the staff really be bothered to pay that much attention to them?

Ruby's door stands closed, the door airtight so that not a sound comes out of there. She is surprised no one has come and yelled at her about this. There is a silver of glass towards the top of the door so that people can check in on her during the night. And Anna sees Ruby, or at least, she spots her legs, kicking out aggressively from behind the bed, knocking against the wall hard.

She pushes the door open, setting it so it is still open but only just and approaching that pair of legs.

"Ruby? Hey, if you're mad at me, I'd like to know what I've done wrong."

At that moment, Ruby springs up and Anna takes a step backwards, her neck bashing into the door handle and causing her to moan with pain. Ruby is facing her, eyes blazing with fury, teeth bared in a foul grimace. But that is not what is the most terrifying thing. She is a mess, her black clothes which she had been wearing so happily earlier, are rags, she has cut them to pieces. There are rips around her neck, the sleeves have come away, it is as if she were desperate to get the wretched thing off, but had no idea how to pull it over her head. Her hair is the same, cut down to just below her ears, her long waves gone, sheared away. In her hands, she clutches a pair of scissors. In the silence, in the dark, for the lights are off, she hears them opening and closing, the two metal pieces clicking against each other.

_Snip, snip, snip._

She hurls herself forwards, she is like a wild animal, a tiger, a lion, a towering wild bear, all her rage and anger build up in a fiery pit in her stomach, bursting free, her wrath taken out on her.

She has the scissors, close to her face, she is hissing now, like a snake though much more sinister. Anna is pinned up against the wall, her back is caught halfway between the door and the ground, it aches like it has been bruised all over. In a brief passing moment of hysteria, she wails, and suddenly, Ruby is being dragged off her, held back by three orderlies and carried off down the hallway. And then she is alone, breathing deep sighs of relief, and staring after the group in disbelief.

* * *

 

Every time Anna passes the dreaded room known as solitary, she imagines Ruby in there. She imagines what she is doing, she imagines her pacing up and down, punching the walls maybe. Or possibly she is sitting in a corner, reflecting on the events of the past day.

Anna needs to make her own way now, she can survive without Ruby, she had to all those years before she met her. She has never felt like this with the few people she has dated, but then that was in high school and college. Common places, places you are expected to be seen at. Most typical people can go their entire lives without setting foot in a mental institution.

But now she knows how Ruby feels about her, at least, she can try to assume that was what the attack was about. But she could be wrong. But she has to get on with things, she has to get on with her treatment if she wants to get out of here, that's her main goal isn't it, to get out of here, get a good job, impress her family?

When Ruby is finally let out of solitary, she comes to visit her. When she first got taken away, the nurses could not really interrogate Anna about what happened, about why she was in her room in the first place. She was too traumatized. And now, it seems they have left the situation alone. But that doesn't been it didn't happen. Most of the patients heard the commotion, the yelling, all the way from the rec room. Some came to check what was happening, they got a brief glimpse of Ruby, the girl who was both perfectly sane and insane at the same time, before they were ushered back.

"I guess I owe you an explanation," she says as Anna puts her drawing down. She had been doodling the way she imagined the Disney princesses to look in real life, of course beginning with Ariel. The drawing looks stunningly like her and she realizes this is probably self insertation.

"Oh no, Ruby, you don't owe me anything," she reply, trying to hide the fear in her voice and pushing herself up on her hands so that, if need be, she can make a quick escape.

"Of course I do. You told me your sad family story. I owe you one. I know all about you and you know literally nothing about me, other than I'm hot as hell of course. And a great kisser, did I mention?"

Her hair is still choppy and short, she can't expect it to grow back in a few days. This is the same Ruby, the same jokey, flirty Ruby. The hair makes her seem like a different person though, and she can't forget what happened. She is back to wearing one of her leather jackets and a T-shirt with a Mexican skull printed onto the front.

"Would you believe me if I told you I don't remember a thing that happened?"

Anna is about to nod, say she agrees with everything she says, but she knows she doesn't.

"No."

"Well I wouldn't believe me either. But I'm telling the truth. I know all about what happened." She points at her head. "I've heard in here, and from the nurses. Let's just say that person who attacked you wasn't me."

"Ruby, if you've got a problem with me, say now. I'll understand, it's not the first time someone's left me. I-I'll get over it," she manages. She doubts she will, but she needs to at least try.

Ruby takes a seat beside her and Anna moves to the very edge, not even dare look at her face, should she annoy her.

"My dad, my real dad, left fifteen goddamn years ago. I was okay, I guess I was too young to understand. And things were fine, there was me, there was mom, it was good. She had a steady office job, we had enough, we could live. Anyway, when I was twelve or something, she started coming home later and later. And this was worrying. She had always been home by four or five, to help me with my homework and to make me dinner. But now, she would be gone until eight, nine, ten. Said she was working late and I was young, I believed her. It was a fantastic existence at first. Every night, microwavable fries,  Ben and Jerry's. But soon I started to get sick of it. One night, she must have come in at like, midnight." Ruby pauses for breath here.

"I heard voices downstairs, tiptoed downstairs, looked through the bannisters. And there was a man and mom was kissing him. A pretty shocking sight for a child. You know, not just a quick kiss on the cheek, tongues down each others' throats. Gross. I asked her about it the next day. She said it was a guy she met at work, she was a little embarrassed but she thought the two of them were gonna have some future together and I wasn't happy but I tried to support her. The guy creeped me out to be honest. A year and a half later, they were engaged. Dude's name was Azazel, whatever sort of insane name that is. She used to call him ' _Az'_." Ruby puts on a sickly sweet tone of voice which can only be an attempt to imitate her mother.

"He had two kids, Tom, my age. And Meg. She was two years older and mom was always trying to get us to play together. She was nice and cool though I treated her like crap. Regret that now. She just wanted us to be friends. We moved in with them and when Azazel was home, I spent the entire time in my room. I was a poet, that was my ambition. Anyway, couldn't have been more than nine months later. Mom couldn't sleep, wouldn't eat. We'd all noticed but she only took it seriously when her boobs started swelling. We took her to hospital. Stage four breast cancer, they said she had. They said she should have come in earlier, when she first noticed the symptons." She wipes a white sleeve over her eye.

"Said there was nothing they could do now. She knew, I feel now. She knew she was going to die but every time I came to visit her, she had she was recovering, the chemotherapy was working. And I believed her, even when her hair fell out, even when she was vomiting everywhere, even when she could barely stay awake to talk to me. Because she had always been honest, I could always trust her."

"Other than what happened with her boyfriend," Anna points out.

"Yeah, well she'd been meaning to tell me that, when she was ready. But this lie, she told me to protect me. She had no idea how her protecting would hurt me though. She died within another six months. It was a real shock. It was then I went bad. Everyone thought I was depressed. But the truth was, I just wasn't myself. It felt like I was a new person. I hated talking to people. I just locked myself in my room writing dark, sadistic poetry. I looked in my closet and everything I saw just felt so wrong. I ripped up some of my posters and I just started dressing in all black because it was like I hated my life. But the worst thing was the blackouts. I would be doing one thing and then I would just be somewhere else, restricted to my bedroom of course. And then one morning, I woke up in a big white room."

"What, you mean you came in here yourself? You checked yourself in?"

"No. That's not what happened at all. It was in one of my blackouts. I don't remember what happened. But apparently, I was sleeping. And I started yelling in bed and Meg came, she thought I was having a nightmare but...the doctors gave me a report she'd written. It was something about this evil glint in my eyes. I was swearing at her, telling her to leave me alone, she was saying she'd get her dad, I called her a bitch and when she didn't go, I got out a knife. I don't even remember how I had a knife, why would I have a knife? I cut her a little and she ran, called her dad and I was insane, slashing at everything I saw. The cops came, took me away."

"But you seem-" Anna stops herself. She knows the rules, she's not supposed to distinguish the people here and on the outside as not normal and normal.

"I've met you, I know you and you're not like that. You wouldn't-"

"Dissociative identity disorder," Ruby replies. "That's my current diagnosis. We're not supposed to share with other patients-"

"And we're not supposed to be in the other patients' rooms, but that doesn't stop me, does it?"

"They thought I had schizophrenia at first, like you. It made sense, I was hearing voices in my head and they thought maybe I had seen Meg as a monster, that was why I attacked her. I was in a kids' ward. But I got moved to a more secure ward. Apparently I was a danger to my surroundings. It's not like in the movies, a doctor  can't just whip off their glasses and shout "this here's nymphomania". It takes a while, of observations, to sort everything out. Then they found out about the blackouts. And then they called in a specialist."

Ruby leans her head back against the bed frame,a gesture that is only Ruby, no one else.

" But the way I understand it, I'm not like other patients. My illness, my mental problems, those other person sharing a body with me, they're not me. Most people with this can learn to live with the other people, the alters, that's what they told me to call them. There are four of them. The first is me, the host, exactly the way you see now, she's the one mainly in control. Ruby." She nods as she moves herself closer to Anna and takes her hand.

"Funny, obviously the greatest person you'll meet, smart, beautiful, very attractive both physically and mentally and of course, modest."

Anna chuckles.

"Then, there's Zola. She comes out when I'm sad mainly. They say this problem develops mostly due to childhood trauma but for me, it was teenage years, later on. I guess it was because of my mom. Anyway, Zola is shy, likes to be withdrawn from people. She's quite dark and cool and distant, she likes things very plain. She dresses in all black, wears no make up, not that we're allowed much here anyway, ties her hair back, wears no jewellery, they won't let me wear any of that anyway. I trust you've already met her."

Anna gives a gasp, moving slightly in her comfortable position. "The other day, when you weren't talking to me. Was that her?"

"Yep. In the flesh. Well, in my flesh."

"And do you black out when she's in control?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes it's like I'm watching what she does as a kind of movie in the back of my head. Then, there's Violet. She fancies herself as an intellectual, but really, she's a, mind my language, a pretentious whore. But, I guess she's the one I get on with best. She tries to hold back the others inside my mind when they try to come forward. I can hear her now, even. She says I shouldn't be telling you this and everything. And then there's Lilith."

"Lilith?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with that?"

"I dunno, it's just, I thought the others all had normal names and stuff. Isn't that the name of a demon?"

"How would you know that?" Ruby asks in a mock shocked voice.

"My psychologist told me to name them all and the names just sort of jumped to mind, though Violet named herself, says her name means 'sensitive'. And Lilith, that one just came to me. Because she's pure evil. But, the thing is, she was the one who attacked Meg. She's vicious, violent, sometimes she just shouts inside my head until I want to go insane. I never remember when she's in control, I suppose it's because he's so far off from me. She hates being locked in here, both in this hospital and inside my head. She says she's the original, the host and she constantly says stuff like she's gonna escape. And when she's in control, she attacks people, and I don't know what to do to stop her. And that's why it's so hard for all my alters to work alongside each other. Because of her."

"Well, what about your family, don't they support you, your stepdad?"

"My stepdad left me for dead. The doctors said they might discharge me a couple of years ago, they called him in and everything 'cause they thought I was getting better. He made up all these excuses, 'she's dangerous, she could hurt my kids', like I would even be able to hurt either of those bitches while they're off at some fancy medical school at the other side of the country. No, he's just worried about his own skin. He doesn't want me and I'm not too keen on him."

"That's horrible. How could he do that?"

"Didn't matter anyway, I broke out of my room a fortnight later and attacked three patients."

"But maybe you, or this other side of you would do better if they weren't cooped up like this!"

"Whoa, Anna, calm down. I've had to live with this longer than you and I'll tell you now; mental illness does not rely on environment. Mental illness is absolute. It does not care what time of day, what time of the year it is. It strikes whenever it feels like it and there's nothing we can do to change that. I have a demon living inside me, like the ones you see. Except this is different. Because this is one is real."

"That's-you really are a poet." Then Anna giggles and leans into Ruby. She plants a kiss on her smooth cheek and Ruby glances over at her. She doesn't let her continue , but doesn't push her away either, just grins.

"Not now, it's almost time for meds. You know what will happen if we're not there and the orderlies come looking for us. We'll carry on with this tomorrow."


	5. Chapter 5

Anna decides she wants to start a diary. She announces this news to her morning discussion group as they go around the circle, making up their goals for the week. So far, her star chart is up to the same level as most of the patients who have been here about a month longer than her, maybe because she keeps setting herself goals like she will do some drawing or read a book, easy to complete because she honestly cannot be bothered to come up with anything more imaginative.

But today she has. Claire finishes talking about how she would like to beat her high score on one of the many dance games stacked up in the rec room. The nurses have told her she should try to be more active.

Anna knows that once she is out of here, all that lies ahead for her is a career in journalism. And, to be fair, she is looking forward to that although she wishes she could have a go at a little photography. So why not share her story, her story of getting better, of the many patients here, of Ruby, of her daily routine, of everything, to give those who never have the pleasure of coming to a place like this an inside view.

When it is her turn, she tells the kind doctor who runs the session, what he wants to hear as he peers at her over the rim of his thick glasses.

"It's a way of outlining my erm...treatment. I'm going to talk about my process of healing and...yeah." She pauses multiple times, wishing it all sounded more convincing.

Luckily, the doctor approves. "Okay, so Anna is going to be starting a diary. What about you, Jo?"

There is more to it than all these reasons she has provided. She has seen the patients, the way their empty eyes move around, as Ruby puts it, the life drained out of them. And she knows the care they are getting here is for their own benefit, though sometimes she isn't so sure. The nurses, the psychologists, they don't understand and they never will. They live with the belief that because something not normal is going on in their heads, that they can't come up with thoughts for themselves, like young children.

It's the reason why they always speak to them slowly with those patronizing voices, why they distribute punishments or consequences, why they have star charts and all these childish games and activities. They don't understand.

She doubts any of these calm, intimidating workers in the establishment have gone through any of what the patients have to got them here. Like Claire. Did any of them have get abandoned in foster care, living silently in depression. She doesn't think so. The foster system wouldn't have had the money to send them off to medical school to get their various Masters and Doctorates.

Had any of them been in traumatizing car crashes, like Dean? Had any of them lost a sibling? Or a mother, like Ruby? Possibly, some of their families might have died of old age, or heart attacks from high cholesterol levels, all of which would have been mildly expected. But the truth was, the only people who truly understood the patients' pain was other patients.

It is the best achievement she can hope to make while she is stuck in here. Her plan is to set up a discussion group type of thing. Something she can gather all the patients together in, where she can help them, at least as much as she can. She knows she is not a professional. She has no journalism degree, let alone a degree in psychology. She has no chance in understanding the way the human mind works. But she knows how her own mind works, spiritually, not the physical layout of it. And that is good enough for her.

Towards the end of the group, Naomi pops her head around the door. Her face sweats, her eyes tinged with scarlet, as if she has been crying. Her hair is sticking out everywhere and Anna is almost certain this is not because of static electricity.

"Excuse me," she says, trying to hold back her sobs which make her usually distinguished voice quiver. "But could I speak to Anna. It will only be two minutes."

Anna is dismissed, back again, out into the corridor. Something is wrong, although she cannot see why anything to do with Naomi's personal life would affect her, neither why Anna's life would affect Naomi emotionally.

"I'm sorry this can't wait." She stands over Anna with her unrivalled height, wiping the damp patches on either side of her nose. "I know we're meant to have a meeting tomorrow, but something came up. I have to go home now. But I need to ask you something first."

"Yes."

"Some of your family members got in touch. I know this is a bit sudden, but they asked to come and visit you. And Doctor Vizyak and I agreed that you were healthy enough."

Anna is in a world of her own, out of the hospital, vanishing from this 'little talk' with her psychologist, soaring high above this town like an angel, then high above America, as she takes her time to process. Her family is coming. Her family. It is upsetting, not as upsetting as it would have been at her arrival, but still upsetting. And laughable. Her family, her mother who thought she was better than everyone because she made more money than the typical person yet always found time to visit Church once a week, plus for festivals, her father, the hard headed businessman that he was, on top of everyone, even on top of the government, or so he thought, who he disapproved of so highly. They are going to be here. Among people with mental conditions who she had once overheard them refer to as 'nutters'. This was not going to go well. And yet, she almost feels like she has to see it.

"So they're going to bring you some new clothes and books to read. Is there anything else you'd like them to bring? What are your hobbies?"

Hobbies? Drawing is one of them. But here, they gave all the art resources she needs, pencils ranging from thin, hard pieces of graphite to soft, difficult to sharpen and easy to smudge. They have watercolors, oil paints, acrylics, paintbrushes of all thicknesses. They have charcoal, chalk, oil pastels. Felt tips, coloring pencils, and all sorts of paper for her to experiment on. She needs no more of that. But there is one art material she would like.

"My camera," she answers, after pondering it, turning the topic over and over in the center of her mind. "I want my camera."

"Oh Anna." Her face scrunches up as she gazes down on her with her deepest sympathies. "I'm not sure that's the best of ideas."

"Why?"

"Well, there's the wire, the plug, unsupervised, you could easily use them to hurt yourself."

She knows what she means. The wire is only short, yet she could strangle herself, had she the guts, which she doesn't. The plug could smash the window, or dragged across the skin with the right strength, could cut through her flesh like a knife through bread. But there are other reasons too.

"And there's the other patients' privacy. They wouldn't like for you to be showing pictures of them to other people outside, now would they?"

Or giving away secrets to what life is like within.

"Well what about my keyboard?"

Anna has learned to play the piano since the age of eight. She didn't take lessons in the school like her friends, she never got a chance to be a member of the soul band. She was sent to a private, and as she could see, expensive tutor, under her mother's wishes. She was whizzed through the grades, balancing her rehearsing schedule with her homework. At least half an hour a day, until her fingers leapt along the black and white keys, the hum of the strings from within the instrument, caused by her own hands. And she enjoyed it.

The family had a grand old piano in the sitting room, she practised on a similar one with her tutor. But she had never been allowed to use this. For her eighth birthday, she was bought a keyboard and she loved mucking around at the end with all the strange sounds it made and the different songs it would play without her assistance. She used to wish she could make electronic remixes like those people she listens to on Soundcloud and Youtube. But soon, she accepted that was never going to happen. She never wanted a career in music as she did in art and photography. But it was something to work towards, other than top grades.

The same look spreads across her face. "I'm not sure about that either. Again, a wire, a plug, a table would need to be given to you too."

"But you would always know when I was using it so you could keep an eye on me. Unless I had headphones which you're not going to give me. Plus, it's pretty easy to catch someone trying to smash their window with a huge keyboard. And I won't be able to intrude on anyone's privacy."

She grins at her own assertiveness.

"Alright, I'll see what I can do."

* * *

 

Anna excitedly bursts into her plan about the discussion group, to Ruby as they sit over the table. Her hand wriggles until it comes into contact with a sharpie which she begins to furiously scribble on some stray pink paper with.

"Diary, you say? Writing? It seems I'm rubbing off on you. Maybe my great talent will be passed onto you, my young apprentice."

"Yeah, and guess what? My family's coming tomorrow."

She sees Ruby hang her head and realizes the jealousy that must be propelling from her right now. She can't say that while she feels empathy for her, she isn't enjoying the fact that someone is coming to visit her. She remembers the way she reacted to Naomi bringing up her parents within the first month, how panicky she got. But someone cares, someone other than Ruby and Charlie, who is still calling every night.

"I'm sorry."

"It's cool. Totally cool."

"Yeah, it's just gonna be hard to imagine my mom here. She'll be wrinkling her nose at everything, she'll probably run out screaming in seconds."

"I can imagine that from what you told me about her and your dad. Gross people. I'm staying out of the way of that Republican scum for sure," she laughs. "You seem chirpier than I've ever seen you. Maybe that part of me is rubbing off on you too."

"Hey, I can, erm, I can develop a personality for myself."

"Ah, it's so cute when you try to make yourself all big like that and get all nervous. One of the many great things about you."

"I guess I'm more optimistic now. Nurses keep telling me I'm looking better, I'm feeling better, achieving more goals, like not looking under my bed anymore or getting you to taste my food. I barely hear voices in my head. And I now know I have the ability to do something good, for you and the other patients, maybe if I get my degree, for the whole world."

"Nothing could comes from ambition, Anna." Ruby says without even a trace of humor in her voice. "You especially should know that, given the situation with your family.  And you know how I feel about the n-word."

It takes Anna a second to realize she is talking about 'normal'.

"God, red berry, what are you doing to that paper? Are you trying to murder it from ink poisoning?"

Anna now sees her own handiwork, the piece of paper almost torn to shreds and covered in black ink from her excitable scribbling.

"You fidget so much. Perhaps from a lack of sexual activity?" She walks her fingers up Anna's back as she speaks, letting her blunt nails touch her spine, beneath her shirt, right above where her bra ends.  "Here, you need something else to draw on." She extends her wrist across the table. "Do me, and I don't mean that literally because there's a small chance some of the doctors would notice if we both got pregnant."

"You have absolutely no concept of the human reproductive system." This jokey tone of talking about sex education reminds her of someone.

"Sure I do. When mommies and daddies love each other very much, they have a special cuddle under the blankets and out pops a baby," she squeals in a sickening, childish voice. "I figure if two girls do it, the baby pops out of both of them. Come on, draw something on my hand."

Anna carefully outlines the slanted eight symbol on her still wrist before proceeding to copy it as best as she can on her own. She flinches as the tip of the pen touches her skin.

"I feel like such a goddamn hipster. Maybe you're rubbing off on _me_ , red berry."

Anna's mouth twitches upwards as she notes again, Ruby's frequent use of 'goddamn'. She pulls the pen away and clicks the lid back on. "It's an infinity sign."

"I know. What, you think I've been living under a rock?"

"Well this place is pretty close to a rock."

"We watch the news and get carefully edited newspapers."

"And those newspapers give you updates on the latest hipster trends?"

"There's a thing called internet."As Ruby falls backwards, she inhales deeply.

"Smell that? Friday. I can already taste the fries. I don't know about you but I'm heading to the cafeteria.  We'd better hurry or they'll run out." She grabs Anna's arm, wrenching her back towards the dining area.

Today, they eat again with Claire and Jo, Ruby steals fries off each of their plates, including Anna's, and chews eat bite around thirty times, drenched in ketchup. She says she likes savoring the taste, even if this process lasts the entire hour they are allocated for food.

As Anna bites down into her warm slice of chocolate cake, the sweet taste of the cocoa working its way down her tongue, her favorite food in the whole world, she wonders how her parents will react tomorrow. And what had started as a joke inside her head, is now a constant, nagging worry.

* * *

 

The next twenty six hours fly by like amber leaves on a cold day in Fall. It is a Saturday, the visiting hours moved to earlier in the day than usual, from 3 till 5. For this reason, people typically don't get guests over the weekend, either because the visitors will disrupt the patient from seeing their psychologist or going to a discussion group, or for some, because they can't make it out of work that early, though why these people are putting work over their loved ones (and why they are working on a Saturday) still leaves Anna dumbstruck.

It is announced to her that her visitors have arrived at three fourteen, she has been counting down the minutes, the seconds, unsure now if them coming for her makes her full of happiness or dread. She has been running the reunion over and over in her head. This is one version:

_Anna sees her mother at the other end of the hallway, a new expensive handbag hanging off her pale arms, one of her features that make her resemble her only daughter (or at least the only one she will accept)._

_"Mom?"_

_"Anna?"_

_At this point the two of them will run towards each other in slow motion, with Chariots of Fire music playing in the background. She will tell her that everything is alright, that they understand her, they are fine with her situation, perhaps that Luke and Ela have returned._

Or the two of them will remain frosty towards each other. She can see them sitting in the room put aside for them to use, maybe Naomi will have left a set of games for family bonding. And they will play these games, without ever meeting eye contact, and they won't even say  goodbye as they depart and 5pm.

She tries to take up her time doing something productive, her, Ruby, Claire and Jo set up guitar hero which is once again projected onto the wall, Anna takes guitar and Ruby on drums, Claire on the second guitar and Jo takes to the stage which just happens to be a clear space in front of the rest of them, with a microphone.

However, when she is informed of their arrival, she is told they have to have a word with her doctor, to describe her mental condition. Which leads to more nervous glancing over her shoulder as she watches the clock, each tick slower and slower until it feels time has stopped. And then, at three twenty six, just twelve minutes later although it feels like she has been waiting hours, they are ready for her.

Her heart thuds, her eyes swim with salty tears of either fear or joy, the two are so closely knit in her mind it is hard to tell them apart. And then, a young man of twenty three with messy, black hair, narrow, blue eyes and a solemn expression, rounds the corner, followed by a man with long chestnut hair and a smirk crossing his cheeks, and a girl with a dark fringe that falls over her eyes.

She cannot believe her luck, she almost leaps with jubilation. She will not have to put up with her worries of seeing her mother and father, at least, not for quite some time. Because here are her older brother, her twin and her cousin.

"Heya, sis." Gabriel is the first to hug her, his arms folding themselves around her back. She is almost taller than him, he was always so short, he always hated it yet described himself as 'fun sized'. And then Cas, her twin bears absolutely no resemblance to her, his hair and skin is dark, he is well built, muscular, his face is round where hers is narrow, his eyes thin where hers are large. And he is so tall as well. The last time she saw him was through a Skype call, them attending different colleges as he wants to become a lawyer.

Then there is Hannah. "Hello Anna," she says, incredibly formally, with that questioning look in her eyes. People have often mistaken Hannah and Cas for the twins, they share the same eyes, hair and cheekbones that cut against their tan skin. Anna and Hannah have always got on well though. They thought it was their names, the fact that they were Anna and Hannah Milton. And Hannah has stuck by that agreement, that sacred bond. She is here, she is supporting her.

"Sorry Balthazar couldn't make it. He got caught nicking some jewellery and's been given a month's sentence."

So they are set up in their little room, Monopoly being brought to them since the nurses have seen her playing it so much. At some point, Gabriel wanders off, leaving just three of them playing, Anna still having saved over a thousand dollars.

"Hey, stop cheating." She slaps Cas' hand away as he makes a move towards her carefully stacked money.

"I just, uh, wanted to see what you had left." He had always been a bad liar.

"So how are mom and dad?" The subject of the game is thrown to the side as she asks the inevitable question.

"Mom and dad? They uh-they're...having trouble accepting the situation."

"Yeah, as much trouble as they've had accepting Ela. When was the last time we saw her? Two thousand and three, two thousand and four? More than ten years Cas."

"What is wrong with you, Anna?" He takes her hands under the table. "You're acting like you don't care about them. They're your parents. That has to mean something to you. That has to mean everything. They know what's best."

"Funny, you sound just like them. Just because I came out of mom's vagina, doesn't mean I owe her anything." This sounds scarily like something Ruby would say but the effect is exactly what she wants. Cas seems taken aback.

"I thought you at least would be supportive. Cas, what happened to you? Who helped me when Ela was going through her dysphoria, when Gadreel was so afraid of what they would say about him. He still is." She is about to leave him when Gabriel strolls back in.

"And where have you been?"

"Hot nurse out there, talked to her for a while, she said she wasn't interested. She's totally into me."

"You don't think she maybe just, you know, not interested?"

"Why wouldn't she be interested? I'm adorable."

"You're short."

"That's sizeism." And then they have another visitor. The handle is fiddled with before finally giving way, Dean sprinting in, yelling, grabbing Anna's shoulders.

"You have to be careful!"

"Dean, calm down!" She raises her arms in front of his face as he claws at her.

"I'm warning you! Stay away from her!"

"Stay away from who?"

"That girl, the one you're always with! She killed my brother, she killed Sam! You have to stay away from her! Or she'll kill you, too!"

At this point, the nurse, she presumes the one who Gabriel had been flirting with, comes in, pulling Dean away. "There you are," she says to him sweetly, pulling him away. Her sleeve slides back so that a scar is obvious just below her shoulder, before it vanishes from sight again.

"You better leave Anna and her family in peace. I'll tell you what, if you can stay calm in the rec room for the rest of the evening, I won't tell Doctor Vizyak."

"Isn't she amazing?" Gabriel says to them all when she's gone.

Anna punches him, playfully in the ribs. "Honestly, Gabriel. She's a professional. She's not gonna want to end up with you."

"I think this is enough excitement for one day," Hannah says to all of them, one of the first words she has spoken. "We'd better head off." She mouths a sorry as she passes Anna, her hand gripping Cas' wrist. "Oh, and by the way, we left a present for you in the lobby."

Seeing how she is not allowed into the lobby, the same nurse who oversaw Dean back then, hands her her keyboard a little while later. And it is still the same, the same keyboard she has had for fifteen years. It still has the chip in the end key from when she angrily knocked one end against her desk. There is still her name in the slightly messier letters she drew with as an eight year old, a little heart scribbled next to the last 'a'.

Her jazz music book is here too in the pile of things that have been brought, lying among the plug and the warm up book.

"We'll set up a table in your room for you."

"Well aren't you just the next little Mozart," Ruby says to her as she flicks through the book.

"I wouldn't say I'm Mozart. I've never written a piece of music and wasn't he, like five, when he wrote his?"

"I still think it's pretty cool. I could never be bothered to take lessons in everything. Well, I did join the girls' soccer team in Middle school, but by the time high school came around, everyone had transferred to cheerleading. Which is alright and all, just not for me. I always wanted to learn drums. Now I'm stuck with stupid guitar hero."

"You could take lessons once you get out of here. I'm sure drums aren't that hard to learn."

"Don't you get it? I'm not getting out of here. Ever. If my DID doesn't make sure of that than stupid Az will." Her voice has risen and she sees a short haired girl named Tessa, turn her head quickly to them, then quickly away.

"So how did your meeting with you family go?"

What is she supposed to tell her? That it was a complete disaster? Is she supposed to mention what Dean said about her, about how she killed Sam?

"Fine. My two brothers and my cousin came and it was fine." She sounds a little to positive, a little too cheery. Dammit, why does she always make the worst decisions?

She leaves for her room, setting her diary aside for tonight, running her finger down every key so they chime just lightly. She begins with a typical beginners' exercise, playing scales, whistling along as she goes. She plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, to get a feel for what she used to do in her old lessons, when she was seven or eight. And then she changes the instrument mode to 'saxophone' and opens up her jazz book.


	6. Chapter 6

_I know the care I'm getting here is good for me. I know I should be grateful and thankful, I know I should be grovelling at the feet of the doctors and nurses for  they are the ones who can cure me. Not that I can be cured as I'm always being reminded. Not that it is a disease. Just something I was born with and something I will die with. This is just a way of controlling it so I can live with it and go out in public and be normal. The n-word as it's called here._

_But the reason I don't feel happy at the moment is because I can see these doctors pity us and that's one of the main sources of the tension between us. In future, if I weren't writing this now, I'd probably be thinking of this as one of the worst times of my life. Even though it isn't my own fault I am here. Even though this is necessary, even though what comes out of those front doors will be a better product of me now, I still hate it._

_The only people who understand me are the others. They-_

"Anna! Hey, what are you writing?" It's Claire, standing with her hands on her hips and peering down at Anna sitting by the window. As her eyes meet the slanted pen writing, Anna can see her making out words and she quickly covers the text with her hands.

It's been a couple of days now since her brother stormed out. And she's feeling a little better, almost as cheery as she had tried to sound when she assured Ruby that everything was alright after the meeting. _Good riddance to him,_ she thinks now but at the same time, she hears his voice in her head.

_Need to get away from you as fast as I can, freak, nut job, disgrace to the family, if you had any idea how hard it was on dad-_

"So, what's the matter?"

"Ruby asked for you. She said 'they're waiting for you.'" Claire quotes this slowly and in a voice with a much lower tone than her own. Anna sees the top of Ruby's head over the top of one of the orange chairs.

Anna gets up, she slides her diary into her jacket pocket and patting it to make sure it is discretely hidden and will not fall out, she pulls up another chair.

Sitting arranged around them are three others, Dean, Jo and Tessa. Claire comes and sits down too and now they are a circle.

"What is this?"

"Your support group thing, right, like you said you wanted to start. I thought we could do it in the good old fashioned way as demonstrated by our discussion groups, go round in a circle and talk about our feelings.

"You got these people here?"

"Well the job wasn't going to do itself. It's not everyone, getting everyone to come and talk to us without the nurses noticing would be impossible. No, I just got the under thirties."

"Yeah, I need a crowd of people I can relate to more," she chuckles but the only one who even mildly reacts to her joke is Ruby who just grins.

So it isn't much of a joke anyway but she appreciates Ruby's effort.

"Alright, so I guess I'll start." She puts on her cheesiest smile and pretends she isn't where she is. "Thank you for that wonderful suggestion, Ruby, so I suppose, yes, we'll go around in a circle, and say our diagnoses."

"Hey, Anna, isn't that against the rules?" Jo asks.

"She ponders how to reply to this and goes with being a supportive group leader who lets the participants make their own choices. "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to but if you think it might make you feel better...So I'm Anna, I've been here around three months because my psychologist, she thinks I have schizophrenia."

And then Dean spoke. He was opposite Anna in the circle so they weren't exactly going round one by one but it didn't matter if the order was messed up a little.

"I'm Dean and I-I..." He seems to be struggling to string together the necessary words to explain himself but he finally gets there. "I've been here maybe three and a half months because I saw my brother die. He died in a car crash. And because I know this was no ordinary car crash even though I keep being told it was. I know I'm not crazy, I saw. There was a woman and she was controlling the car and she made it crash. She wanted Sam to die and I survived and I saw her."

Dean is a schizophrenic. Or something of that kind, so at least Anna gets him, at least she gets his need for everyone to believe him because he believes so greatly that he is right. But he knows the truth, deep in his heart.

And then, Tessa raises her hand.

Anna does not know her well, unlike with the other three, she has never had a fully structured conversation with her, she has always to her been one of those background characters lurking around here. Still, she knows her name which is saying something.

Her hair is black, cut short so that it frames her face in a bob. She has on a jacket, brown and showing off a half gray, half blue shirt with some ribbon attached to the front. With her frown, her two front teeth show through her heavily pursed lips and her eyes have a slight sparkle to them.

"I brought myself in here about six months ago because I was hearing voices. It started a little over a year back, I thought it was work stress, I'd just been given a promotion, I work, I mean I worked, at an airport, helping people to get through security. So I ignored it. I bought myself some melatonin, thought it could help me sleep at night. I was wrong. The voices wouldn't go and I was taking time off work trying to recover." She stops now, her mouth fully shut, like she won't tell anything else.

Anna waits. She knows, if she wants all of them to let their stories out, she has to be gentle, not try and force them, poking and prodding until they tell everything like the psychologists do with their patients. It seems like Tessa has had enough and Anna is about to turn to Jo when Tessa continues.

"I looked up online what hearing voices said, it said I could have a mental illness and I needed to talk to someone. I was worried though that no one was going to take me seriously. In the end, I brought myself in to the local hospital. They did some tests on me, talked to me a bit and I got sent here to recover."

Tessa is one of the lucky ones. She hasn't been deserted...and she knows perfectly well her reasons for being here. She is not deluded, she does not think it is some kind of mistake because it was of her own choosing, she checked herself into the ward. She is one of the people who gets visitors at least once a week, a pale and incredible thin man in a suit most of the time comes for her. She is one of the few who will leave calmly and be able to carry on with their life where they left off with almost no damage. She is one of the people Anna envies.

After hearing two others talk before her, it takes virtually nothing to pry open Jo's mouth, simply a nod in her direction from Ruby and she begins to talk.

"I never really felt like I fitted in."

A very stereotypical way to start her speech.

"I was a blonde girl, pretty I guess, but no interest in shopping or clothes or anything that, well I guess there are things girls are associated with being like. People would call me whiney, attention seeking, but I wanted to go out hunting, like I did with my dad before he died in a road accident. I wanted to be strong and brave like him. But girls couldn't be like that. I had no idea why but I was collecting knives, I thought it was to prove my strength, but really I just liked the way they were glinting inside the case. And I was stealing these knives. Two years ago, I got in some trouble with the cops, I was caught stealing. I got sent to a detention center but then, they figured out that my problem was nothing to do with breaking the law. They thought the fondness for knives was something that needed to be looked into harder. I started seeing a psychologist once a week and then, before long, I was transferred here, full time."

"Hey, guys. I'm sorry, Jo, I'm gonna have to stop you right there but I have to break this up. You know you're not supposed to be forming clubs and groups or discussing your diagnoses." The brown haired nurse whom Gabriel had flirted with on his visit is standing behind them, her arms folded though her expression not unkind.

Ruby, without glancing up at her, mutters under her breath, mimicking her folded arm gesture and pulling her chair away. Slowly, everyone follows after her, taking their chairs to one side and moving back into their previous positions, playing games, drawing, returning to their rooms to read a book, until only Anna is left, facing the nurse.

"I'm sorry." She hangs her head but tries to maintain eye contact. The nurse does not appear angry, not at all, Anna knows she is not the type to get easily fired up, she is sarcastic though never in a cruel manner, always joking, always teasing the others. And, once more, Anna spots that particular scar on her shoulder which slides along the skin as her muscles flex, a kind of grief resides behind her cheerful, dark eyes. She stares down at the nurse's badge which she had pinned on the left side of her chest, it bears a little, very neutral photograph of her and beside it, her name.

_Nurse M. Masters._

It is then, just when Anna is about to leave that she realizes who this nurse is, where she has heard the surname before, and it all fits, being a nurse at this particular ward, wearing that scar in that exact space on her body. She only wonders how it has taken her this long to identify her.

"You're Meg. You're Ruby's step-sister."

At being revealed, she doesn't seem to panic at all. She doesn't even seem remotely surprised, though she raises a finger to her lips, gives her cheekiest grin.

"She told you about that then? You'd better keep your voice down, Anna. Couldn't have me being discovered now, could we? She told you about me then? About everything?"

"Yeah, she told me..." Anna trails off. "She told me most of it."

"So you're close? Good friends?" There is something knowing in her tone and as their eyelines meet, Meg winks.

"Yeah, yeah, very good friends. So how did you get to work here?"

* * *

 

Anna is lurking with Meg, near the kitchens, so that the smell of the hot and meaty curry wafts under the door and makes both of them cough as the cooks put far too much chilli into the food. They have had to change the location of the discussion. It is not like it is suspicious, having a nurse and patient in conversation, but talk too long, too intently, people will think something is going on as that is another of the rules in their long, long list of guidelines that stretches on for so many pages: Don't make friends with the nurses. Maybe with slightly different wording but it's on there so what does it matter, they still know they can't talk where they can be seen with ease.

"So you've never told Ruby you're here, not once?"

"I've never had the time to properly talk with her. It's not that I don't trust her, I know she's good at keeping secrets, she kept secret the problems she was having for months. In fact, I didn't know exactly what she was suffering from before I got here and read her file. I took a psychology extracurricular class at college. I had a pretty big bet on it being DID."

"Ruby's life isn't a game, none of our lives are, you can't make bets on it."

"It's not like I could stop myself making guesses. She's been holed up in here for years when I got to that stage, we had all connection with her cut off, I had no idea how she was doing, how she was coping, my dad wouldn't even let me see her. Wait, did she tell you about him?"

"About your dad? Yeah, she told me a little." She told her a lot more than a little, but Anna can't let her know that. What if she offends Meg, this is _her_ father they're talking about, maybe she doesn't know the truth about him. She still gets angry with Ruby for every insult she tosses about Anna's parents even though she knows every single one of them is real and she is trying to protect herself with an illusion.

"I wasn't sure all of it was true."

_Because it came from Ruby's warped mind._

"Is it true?" she asks. "Ruby really has been here for seven years?"

"Two thousand seven, the last time I saw her. Seems like longer. I never really got to know Ruby, she was always cold towards me what with our parents marrying. I tried to be as kind as I could, I don't think she appreciated it. Then again, kindness has never been my strong suit."

"Really? I mean, you seem to do a good job with the patients."

"Training. Trained to be a nurse for a few months, then I asked if I could come to work here, specifically here. I expect that was a little suspicious but since we're not biologically related, there was nothing on my file that linked me to her. Still, I can't reveal myself."

"Well hasn't she recognized you? I mean, you were eighteen when she came in. I reckon you could still get away with being-" she squints. "Twenty, maybe."

And Meg laughs then. "It's always nice to hear some appreciation. No, it's not the age that would have stopped her recognizing me. Before we met the first time, I'd restyled my hair, dyed it blonde and cut most of it off. Now, it's back to its natural color. She's never seen me like this so she can't exactly link this hair back to the old me. Even if I did tell her and she did swear to keep it a secret, I'd be worried. If she became one of her, what does she call them, alters, what if they gave away some of the information on her to another nurse? What then? I'd be out of here, out of a job, my dad would hear, I expect he'd be angry though I don't know his exact personal feelings about Ruby."

There it is. Meg doesn't know anything.

"It's best if things stay like this."

"You mentioned you know about her alters. So you've read her whole file?"

"Not _everything_. When I started here, the doctors encouraged me to read a few papers on each patient, the situation of their health and something written by them to see how they feel, so I'd know what I was dealing with. They didn't let me go through her file, just gave me an overview and let me read one of her poems. It basically described her four personalities."

"What did they give you on me?"

"Oh, nothing. Just a drawing you did."

Anna's head shoots up. "Where did they get one of my drawings?"

"I don't know," she says and now there is definitely something Meg knows that Ruby doesn't, something on the tip of her tongue, something she is just dying to say. "It was very nice actually, you're a very good artist. It was you and Ruby, standing next to each other."

Anna remembers this drawing, from when Ruby and her began their secret relationship that didn't seem so secret anymore. Maybe this was why Naomi had asked so many questions about Ruby. Because she had seen this so called drawing. Her eyes sink back to the floor to hide her embarrassment.

"Look, I need your help. To find out something about her. Or really just confirm it. You haven't read Ruby's file. But you know where it is, and you know how to get to it. This is good, I have someone on the inside, now."

"Don't make it sound like we're criminals."

"I need you to help me get into the room where they keep the files."

* * *

 

"Are you almost done?" she hears shouted through the door as she tugs on the drawer on the filing cabinet. Meg is standing outside, keeping guard, making sure no one comes along and figures out what they are doing.

This is one of the most stupid decisions of her life, stupider than when at the age of eight, her and her brothers had gone out to the park with their bikes. Gabriel, being the show off he had always been, spotted a group of passing teenage girls and making the decision to impress them, stood up on the bike and continued peddling at a constant speed while barely using his hands and using perfect balance. Anna had decided this looked amazing and attempted to copy him. Except, this lead to her toppling forwards, head over heels and landing with the wreckage of the bike on top of her and a nasty bruise on her forehead, in addition to her knee having been cut open.

That day, she didn't cry. Some would call her brave for that. Others would say she was reckless. Some would say she deserved her free will to follow her brothers. And some, like her mother would angrily wipe her face clean and scold her for having done something so dangerous while not a word was said to her brother, because he was a boy, because he could do what he wanted. He could face all the dangers in the world and she wouldn't bat an eyelid, stupid, traditional woman. She curses herself for thinking this about her family and begins to rummage through the folders.

And then, she thinks, there was the time when her, Gabriel and Balthazar decided to pig out on chocolate. By the time they ahd gotten through what must have been ten thousand calories worth, once again, she was being scolded. 'Girls can't eat too much, we can't have you getting fat, now can we.' And now, she knows what else her mother would have wanted to say to her, how she should stick to dancing and dolls, how she should be the average nineteenth century young lady. In case her mother has not noticed, it is the twenty first century.

It is all beginning to dawn on her now, the wild child she used to be who loved playing with her brothers, who was still a girl but didn't have to act the way girls were supposed to act. And her mother, her father, they have changed her. They have shaped Anna into someone new, someone who isn't the Anna Milton she was born as. Someone who is dainty and sweet and shy in public, someone whose loud attitude and lively personality have been taken away, reserved for only friends. Someone whose interests and hobbies have been chosen for them, someone whose entire life has been laid out in front of them without any of their own decisions going into it. And Anna misses that girl. Anna misses the real Anna.

Now, she is here, their spell broken, damaging her greatly in the process, and she is trying to read Ruby's file. Maybe she can even dispose of that drawing she did in the process to spare herself from anymore embarrassment as any new nurses see it.

She wants to know the real reason why Ruby has not gone home in seven years, why she has not had any visitors, why she has had to stay here for so long when she is making as much progress as anyone. Because, as much as she wants to believe Ruby, she seems like the type of person to exaggerate things. What does Anna mean, she seems like that? She is her girlfriend, she knows that is the way she is.

The files have been sorted by the year the patient arrived and then, the subcategories of alphabetical order. She eventually finds what she is looking for under 2007.

_Ruby Crowley-12/15/2007_

Anna unfolds everything and after looking over her shoulder, begins to read. Here is a sheet of paper that lists the various different diagnoses she has been given over the years, here is her first medical report, her second, her third. Here is a questionnaire, given to her by her psychologist, most likely in one of their meetings. And here, some of her poetry. Anna does not take time to read this, although she lets her eyes trace the name which she has tried to print ever so carefully onto the top of the paper.

And then, there is another report, written by Ruby's psychologist, six and a half years ago.

_Dear Doctor Vizyak,_

_Recently, I believe that one of my patients, Ruby Crowley, has made outstanding progress. The said patient most likely suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder and recently, we have been working so that in the end, these personalities, or alters as patient prefers to call them, can work alongside each other. It is, in this case, I believe that in a few months, patient should be able to be thinking about returning home._

So at some point, shortly after Ruby's arrival, it had been acknowledged she was making progress. What had happened? There is another letter now, responding to Ruby's psychologists statement, saying they will contact her guardian. And then, here is the guardian's reply. Anna feels her heart racing as she reads

_Hello, Doctor Vizyak. Thank you for getting in touch though I don't understand why there is any need. Forgive me, but I thought your aim was to cure patients, not send them home when you think they are making progress. I have two children of my own, I cannot have Ruby's influence of them, destroying their lives which have already been so ruined as it is. My first wife left me, my second wife died of cancer, you can understand how badly this would affect them. It is, therefore, that I deny your plea to let my late wife's daughter come home to me._

_Sincerely,_

_Azazel Masters._

And now, Anna's heart is still racing, not with excitement, not with fear, with anger. What a dickhead, who could be so ignorant, so rude? His daughter was already out of the house anyway. But already she knows who could be like that. Her own parents are just the same.

Before she closes the file again, she checks one more thing. It is Ruby's contact details and at the very top is her family.

_Mother: Lilith Masters née Burns (Deceased)_

Lilith, the same name as the dangerous alter who attacked Anna that one dreadful night.

* * *

 

She tries to calm herself by going back to her room and playing 'Jar of Hearts' on her keyboard, humming along the tune, but she just can't focus on anything, she is in such a raging temper. She is angry, beyond angry. That awful man denied his wife's daughter, the woman who trusted him enough to take his surname, a space into his own home. She had died and he had acted like her word didn't even matter. It is sickening, it really is, Azazel Masters, she hates the name.

She switches the keyboard off again because, even now, she has to talk to Ruby, just for a minute.

She finds her back in the rec room, watching cat videos with Jo and carefully supervised by another nurse to make sure they don't watch anything inappropriate.

"Whoa, Anna, you were gone a while. Thought you could get away from me, did you?"

Anna doesn't answer, she rushes into Ruby's arms, she throws her arms around her, she pulls her close until she hears "break it up" and a nurse's footsteps as he comes to try and separate them.

"I'm here for you, Ruby, if you ever need to talk to me," Anna whispers as she embraces her. "And we're going to get out of here, someday, together, I can feel it. I promise you, we'll get out of here together."

They are pulled apart but not before Ruby has stuffed a ball of rolled up paper into her hands and Anna quickly hides it in her pocket until the nurse has escorted Ruby to the other end of the room because apparently, they need some "time apart." Then, she removes it again. Ruby has written a poem, a poem titled 'Red Berry.' Anna studies it hard.

_She is sweet._

_She is like nectarine, like peach,_

_Like a nice red strawberry._

_She shines in the sunlight,_

_And when she laughs,_

_She sweetens her surroundings,_

_Because nothing can be gray,_

_When there is color._

_And sometimes,_

_She is like fire, like flame_

_Burning on a Winter's day,_

_Fierce, crackling, strong,_

_Dangerous,_

_But enough to keep you warm,_

_Because the cold cannot penetrate,_

_Man's greatest gift._


	7. Chapter 7

Anna occasionally catches what is going on with Lilith during the middle of the night. Ruby's bedroom is all the way at the other end of the hall, but nothing can mask the shrieks from the woman. First of all, she will wake up. Anna will hear her banging on her door, softly at first, sometimes she can make out words. She pleads with the nurses who are deaf to her cries, tells them she is confused and they just need to let her out so she can explain herself.

And then it turns worse. She pounds her fist against the door until you can feel the vibrations, until, no doubt, her fists are bloody, screaming that someone has taken over her body, that they are a liar, that she is the real host to the body and when she eventually becomes a danger to herself, she is taken away.

Ruby later describes waking up, back to being just Ruby. They don't use restraints, not like in the movies, instead, if she gets too wild, apparently they inject her with something that knocks her out for a few hours, apparently she feels 'goddamn drowsy' when she comes to, when they explain her everything and then, when they are sure Lilith is trapped again, they say she is free to go.

Because, ultimately, that is what is happening. Lilith is a prisoner in the back of Ruby's head but slowly, she crawls her way to the front of the mind and takes over, making her voice heard until her mouth is forced shut again. It's a cycle.

If Anna sees Lilith as this separate person from Ruby, then she almost understands her fear, her pain. She is the juxtaposition of Ruby, and maybe the reason for that is because, unlike with Ruby, she doesn't understand the concept of her condition.

But one time, Anna sees one of what she has started to class as Lilith's attacks, just as she is coming out of discussion group where she has even read an extract from her diary, one of the kinder, less harsh ones, to be fair. She sees Lilith, using Ruby's body though in a completely different way to how Ruby uses it, all that clawing and gnashing her teeth and right then, all hope that the two of them will get to leave together, is gone.

* * *

 

Ruby closes her arms over Anna's back and adjusts her legs so that Anna must do the same. They are lying on their sides, next to each other, in Ruby's room.

Five months, that is how long Anna's stay has been, now, and a good lot of help it has done her. She still hears the voices, those menacing, cruel beings that live in the back of her skull. But, does she listen to them? Never.

Of course, the doctors have contributed most of her happiness to her keyboard and her drawing and the diary she is still writing and maybe that is true, maybe enjoying recreations such as she would have at home is a really good way of keeping her relaxed. But it is almost certain that the doctors are missing something.

One thing is Ruby, because when she is with her, when she feels her warm breath against her ear, when she lets her brown hair curl around her finger, everything is perfect and they are in their own little land of humor.

And then, there's her support group. Despite what Meg said all that time ago, they have continued running, even recruited two more, slightly older members and one new arrival to the institution. Anna likes helping, she likes hearing what they have to say, assuring them that they are not alone, giving them the hope to think they are not different, or rather they are, amazing, unique people who will one day find their way home.

Cas has paid a few more visits to her, always making sure to bring someone like Hannah or Gabriel or one time Balthazar, seeing as he is now out of jail. These meetings are fraught with tension, with her and her twin sitting at opposite ends of the room, occasionally moving their chairs backwards and always quickly changing the topic back to the game of Monopoly they were playing every time their home life was brought up.

"Want to play a game?" Ruby asks her.

"Really, here, now, where everyone can see us?"

"No, not that type of game. I actually mean a real game. Well, more of a quiz actually."

"Alright. Go ahead."

"You're trapped on a treasure island. What ten things do you bring?"

"Ten, wow, that's a lot of choice. Does a fridge count?"

"An empty fridge does."

"And do there happen to be wild berries on this island?"

"There do, but are they all safe to eat. You'd be much safer catching fish from the sea."

"I'm a vegetarian."

"And that doesn't  includes fish?"

Anna stares at her, awestruck. "Of course it doesn't. If I ate fish, I would say I were a pescetarian, not a vegetarian."

"Alright Miss Smartypants. Go on, what would you bring?"

"Ooh, I don't know. My camera."

"You're so predictable. How are you going to charge that camera, Red Berry?"

Anna ponders for a moment. "I uh, didn't think of that. Then I'd bring the essentials. Matches, a sleeping bag, a pen knife, a notepad, a pen, a water bottle with a filter-"

"The filter counts as something separate."

"A book, a medical kit and a nice blonde to keep my company."

"Hey." Ruby punches her in the ribs so that they tingle a little although she has not used enough force to actually cause Anna any pain. "You wouldn't cheat on me, would you?"

"If I were bored and stuck on a treasure island, I might."

"Yeah, well guess what, you said eleven, not ten."

"In case you didn't notice, I cut the camera from the list."

"Hey, listen."

"What?"

"I can hear footsteps. Crap." Ruby's voice has shrunk to barely more than a whisper as she thrusts Anna away from her. "Someone's coming, quick, get under the bed."

Rolled up in a ball, Anna slides off the mattress and ducks beneath the bed frame, curling up so that not one part of her is visible. She just sees Ruby's hand reaching for a book off her bedside table. Then she knows that the figure is in the room.

"Patient? Ruby, is it? Have you seen patient Anna Milton?" It is Naomi, trying to sound formal, as always.

"Nope, not since this morning. Maybe she's in her own room."

Anna hears Naomi trotting off again and then she sees Ruby peering down at her over the bed frame.

"That one's insane. I heard a while back, while she was at work, her cleaner found her husband screwing some young girl from his office."

That seems to explain why Naomi had been so stressed the first day that Cas had come to visit.

"Where did you hear this?"

"Claire. She's good at picking up on hospital gossip, that one."

"Yeah." Anna trusts Claire's word. She is always spreading around rumors to them, and most of them strangely enough, turned out to be true.

"So what book are you reading?"

"Oh, this?" Ruby makes an attempt to hide it behind her back, but not before Anna has snatched it away.

"Fifty Shades of Grey?"

"I needed something erotic."

"This isn't erotic. This shows an emotionally abusive relationship. Why would you read this?"

"I don't get to read many exciting books here, in case you haven't noticed."

"Charlie told me it was one of the worst pieces of modern literature she had ever read. There's another reason you're reading this, isn't there?"

"No."

"Ruby, come on."

"Alright. I wanted to feel like I was normal, y'know? It's one of the bestsellers of the year. I may not agree at all with Christian Grey's ideals but I wanted to keep up with the latest news in the outside world. Anyway, as far as I can see, it's a terrible influence. All these women saying it's the first book they've read in years, poor girls. If this is the only thing they've read in years, they may be encouraged to go into relationships like this and think they're perfectly reasonable. It's a shame. And they're releasing the goddamn movie on Valentine's Day, like it's some romance. I can't believe Beyonce agreed to do the soundtrack. Anyway, I was going to go onto Gone Girl and maybe that new J.K. Rowling one after this. And you'll never believe who I snatched this from!"

"Who?"

"I found Dean reading it."

Anna begins to laugh. "You're kidding?"

"That boy has a lot of secrets. You know, when he says he's listening to Led Zeppelin, he's really listening to Taylor Swift. You should probably get going. If you hurry, you can get to the rec room before the sexologist finds out you're not in your room."

The sexologist. Anna has forgotten that is what Ruby nicknamed Naomi. She scurries away, turning at the end of the hall and manages to slide into a seat at the table and calm her rapid breathing before Naomi emerges with her hands on her hips.

"Anna? I've been looking for you everywhere."

"I was...in the bathroom. It's uh...my, you know, time of the month." It is a weak excuse but at least now, she has a reason for blushing so hard.

"I know our meetings are usually later on, but this is urgent and I knew you wouldn't be able to wait to hear the good news."

"Good news."

"We can't discuss it here. Let's go to my office, shall we?"

* * *

 

"I'm getting out?"

"Stop talking like you're in a prison, Anna. I'm simply saying that over these past few months, I have been able to dig really deeply inside you, and find out the person you truly are, underneath."

Again, now Ruby has pointed it out to her, Anna can only here those little euphemisms, within her sentences.

"But what I'm saying is I've made a review between the way you are now and the way you were when you first arrived. There's such a significant difference in terms of coping, you have overcome all your irrational fears, I've seen you choosing your own food and eating it without anyone else having to try. You're brushing your teeth, you don't even check under your bed anymore, I'm impressed. I've sent Doctor Vizyak a message and it's not definite but I'd say you will be out of here in two months, maximum. Now, I'm going to just let you know that after you leave you will still have to see a psychologist, most likely not-"

Anna is not listening anymore. She is afraid. All this time, she has been wishing she can leave, but now she is afraid of being back with her parents, afraid of being alone with them, this place behind locked doors where she can't even visit any of the other patients as they aren't even her family.

Two months before, she promised Ruby she wouldn't leave her behind. And yet, she knows Ruby will be here forever more, especially with that awful father of hers. She has seen people come and go, Jo left just a week before and she didn't seem like she was particularly going to miss this place. But Anna knows she will.

"-and there is a chance that you may be sent back here but it is very slim."

"No, thank you. Is it alright if I go now?"

* * *

 

Her first instinct is to keep this from Ruby. But what a pointless, stupid idea that is. She has kept enough secrets, like her reading her file...

So she hasn't been perfectly honest with her. And now is the time to change that. They have begun their project of getting Ruby in a state where she can impress the doctors so much she can leave.

And of course, it has been a failure. Five attacks that she can count, that she has seen with her own eyes or heard with her own ears. Possibly more, maybe they took place while she was sleeping.

Eventually, she does decide to tell her and she returns to Ruby, brushing back her hair which for some reason, has gone static, as she makes her way back along the corridor. Ruby is still sitting on her bed and Anna notes that she has tossed Fifty Shades of Grey aside, that, sticking to her word, she is now carefully turning the pages of Gone Girl. Anna wonders if she took this from Dean as well.

She gives Ruby a quick peck on the back of her neck, causing her to jump as she had been so deep into the bestseller, she had not noticed Anna enter.

"Don't sneak up on me like that, Anna! Sometimes it's like you just teleported. What was that news that the sexologist had to tell you so desperately.

Anna sits down beside her, she puts her arm around her and hugs the other girl, pulling her closer to her and sniffing her wavy hair.

"Ruby, I-I'm leaving."

"What?"

She sighs. Here is the disbelief. She just is bracing herself for whatever will come next. "Naomi just told me. She reckons I'll be gone within two months."

Sure enough, she feels Ruby beginning to shake, trying to slow down her already fast breathing..

"But that doesn't mean that you won't be able to leave t-"

"Don't kid yourself. We knew this day was coming."

"Ruby, please, don't."

"I'm not going to be angry with you. It's not like it's your fault. I make friends with people. and they leave me. It's not like it's the first time."

Anna sighs. "Ruby, there's something else I need to tell you."

"What?" This time her question seems less out of shock but more angry curiosity.

"I read your file."

"You did what?"

"I broke into the file room and read your file." She decides not to mention Meg seeing as the nurse wants to keep under the radar. "Lilith, your alter. That was also your mom's name."

Ruby looks up at the ceiling though the way her eyes are unfocused, Anna suspects she is looking straight through the creamy white plaster, like it isn't there.

"I didn't choose their names. They chose for themselves, and I just repeated them to my psychologist. But yeah, I did pick up on that Lilith had the same name as my mom. I think that may have been what triggered my condition to start, often they say DID is a result of childhood trauma. I'd say your mom dying after remarrying a douchebag is some pretty bad childhood trauma."

"It said Az, your stepdad, actually requested to not have you sent home."

"I know."

"It's just, sick." She turns so her hips are parallel to Ruby's, she reaches out her sticklike arms and cradles Ruby's face. "I want you to listen to me, if I do get out of here, I will go and find your stepdad. I will tell him what a great person you are, how he has to write to the clinic and say he wants you back, and you will be sent home. Remember our home on the Sims? This is going to be exactly like that, do you understand?"

Ruby leaves a beat before she answers. "Yeah, sure." But her heart isn't in the words.

"Come on, we have to have more confidence than that."

"Anna, I know you care. But I don't. You were...you were nothing! Just...just a distraction, from the horror of this place, to survive. Sometimes we crave a little love, even if it isn't real."

"Don't say that, Ruby!" She feels the tears stinging her cheeks. What a terrible time to show weakness. "I know it wasn't fake, I know..." She wipes her face with the back of her hand. "It was good, the work we did. We were helping Dean and Tessa and Claire and all of them, we were working as a team, getting them to speak. I was healing you."

"You don't get it. Mental illness if absolute. You believe in your stupid hipster sayings, that love heals all. You couldn't be more naive, red berry."

"How could you just forget about it? Pretend you don't care?"

"I've had practice."

"I can't believe you right now, Ruby! So illness may be absolute! But so is love! Can you not see, the reason I'm struggling with this so much is because I love you?"

Ruby freezes and Anna covers her mouth. Love, stupid, crazy love. The deadly word that she had seen destroy so many TV drama romances, whispered in hallways, kept a secret, always only revealed in the worst of times.

Back when she was little, love had been based on attraction. It was what was in those princess stories, right? The princess wakes up from true love's kiss, true love was tossed back and forth as it seemed the prince declared his love upon laying eyes on the princess.

Love had become less real after that, seeing it seeping out of the marriages of her friends' parents, seeing it wasting away, seeing herself stopping believing. You didn't date someone for love. You didn't even have sex for love. It was a case of mutual attraction most of the time, sometimes just a way of drowning your sorrows. But now, here it was, reincarnated inside her.

"I love you too, Anna. I-I've known a while now. And that's where the problem is."

* * *

 

Anna waits a few seconds after she hears the tell tale closing of the door, just to be one hundred percent certain that the nurse is not hanging around outside, that he doesn't have his ear up against the door, that this is not all some trap to catch her researching some inappropriate content, before she puts in her headphones and logs into Youtube.

She is actually surprised Youtube isn't one of the blocked sites in the institution. Ruby showed her a while back. They don't let you use Facebook or Twitter or any of the major social networking webpages. She had even joked about how they censored porn, perfectly understandable of course though Ruby had mock acted like it was the most unreasonable thing she had ever heard. To this day, Anna was not quite sure if she had actually typed in porn on Google during her long stay here. Sometimes things got boring enough that you might consider the strangest, though not strange to an adolescent boy, things to research.

But right now, she is not messing about. This is not about her anymore. She had made a promise. A promise she doesn't feel like breaking any time soon. Ruby has to get out of here with her, she just has to, she will not hear any way otherwise. It seems that the promise, the vow they both made together on that warm day (she can assume it was warm though she wasn't actually outside), all those weeks ago, Ruby thought it was all just make believe. Just a stupid game, a fantasy, kidding herself that they would be together forever. Like a teenager, swearing she will marry her high school sweetheart.

So maybe she is being selfish, because this is what she wants desperately, more than anything. But the definition of selfish is too contradictory right now, inside her head. Selfish, to care about yourself more than others. That is what it is to some extent. But what she is wants to do, her stubborn aim, is to improve Ruby's life quality. So she says she doesn't care, so she pretends she has no heart, that she is cold, unfeeling. But that is a lie. That is a cruel facade, something she uses to make it seem like everything is fine when it isn't. Ruby wants to leave, but she has accepted she never will.

This system is messed up. No one has reviewed her case, she has been trapped, she isn't meant to refer to this place as a prison, but that's all it is, she is imprisoned. She has been here seven goddamn years because, yes, Ruby's language has started to rub off on Anna. Seven years and no one has been bothered to do anything about it.

Behaving well has earned her these privileges, from writing her diary, from creating enough art to cover every wall in the rec room. And recently, they decided, along with her keyboard, she is now also allowed a computer in her room.

So she commences typing in the search box. At home, she used to like reading the comments section, getting angry at the ignorance almost helped her to let off some steam. Of course, she never replied, for fear of them being able to track her down, somehow. Just another of her irrational ideas. Now, she has no time for anything of that sort.

After the first four letters, dissociative identity disorder comes up as one of the more popular results. She has seen Ruby. But now she has to know just what the real thing in action looks like.

The first option is a short news interview, with a man who suffers from the condition. And he looks happy. He is smiling anyway, as he addresses the two news hosts. He is Canadian, lives in Toronto, didn't discover what was different about him until the age of fifteen, when people figured him sometimes switching to an English accent and then not being able to recall it was not just him mucking around. He has seven identities. Just like with Ruby, they all have their own names, they all have different genders, sexualities, voices, clothing styles, demeanors. Except none of them are quite as angry, as destructive and confused, as Lilith is.

Now he lives with his girlfriend, a very pretty woman. She holds his hand as he talks, she does not seem to care at all. She looks into his deep brown eyes, and there is love there, so much love, she is the one Anna focuses on.

Finally, the newsreader poses a question to her.

"So what are your relationships like, with all these different people? I mean, obviously it's hard."

"Yeah," she beams at the camera. "We actually all do get on really well. We'd been going out for about two weeks when he told me about them, he explained to me carefully what his situation was. I think he was worried I'd leave him. But I said I wanted to meet them and gradually over the next few months, I met them all. And sometimes, I'll play with trucks with Joe." Joe is the name of one of the identities, a seven year old boy. "And I gossip a little with the girls and actually, we all get on really well."

"So it's like you're going out with seven people?"

Everyone laughs.

So they can live together, they can get along. Anna knows Ruby had four identities, but yet, she has only met one properly, the others treating her so harshly. And Lilith is not the friendliest of people. So maybe that's what she has to do, she has to talk to the others, meet them, who knows, maybe it will help.

She closes down the internet after a while, though it is hard, she keeps getting distracted by the recommended videos at the side. But eventually, she forces herself into the bathroom, brushes her teeth, scrubs her face and changes well out of the way of the door. Then, she checks under the bed before clambering in.

Her night is long, uncomfortable, uncomfortable with nerves or excitement at what she is going to do tomorrow, she wonders. She keeps getting the sensation someone is standing over her bed, or someone is in the room and looking up for a few seconds, her heart in her mouth, but it is just her imagination. But she swears, she hears noises. It must be hours before her mind finally switches itself off.


	8. Chapter 8

Anna sees Violet down one of the corridors. She knows it's her because Ruby always avoids her in her moments when another alter takes over, that's something you pick up on when living in the same building for nearly six months. Of course, there are other plausible explanations to why Ruby is avoiding her. Like the fight they had the day before. Maybe Ruby wants to get used to not having her around. And it seems a pretty big coincidence that the day Anna needs to meet her other identities is the day one of them takes over. But last night would have been pretty stressful for Ruby. And she knows she tends to black out when times get stressful.

Violet looks different to Ruby. Sure they have the same face, same eyes, same nose, same lips, same height. She wears different clothing. Instead of the leather jacket, a gray or black shirt beneath, funnily enough, her oversized T-shirt is purple, violet. She walks differently too. Her back is straighter, there is more of a stride than a swagger to her step. Each movement is slower and with more ease, cautiously taking her time. If she were wearing a mask and maybe had her hair balled up inside a cap, Anna would never know that Violet and Ruby are the same person. And to be fair, they aren't.

"Anna," she says, taking a step back as she approaches and yes, this is the final factor in showing just how completely different these two women are. Her tone is higher, cooler, a little less relaxed. Ruby had called her an intellectual, pretentious, she remembers.

"You're Violet, aren't you?"

"I've been meaning to talk to you. You know that Ruby cares about you a lot."

"Yeah, yes I do."

"And did you ever think that you're the first person to show her kindness in seven years, the first person who isn't being forced into it by a job contract but because they're generally a nice person?"

"I-I'm not-I-"

"Stop. You know it's true. Admit it to yourself, Anna. You're a very good person."

"I wouldn't say I'm perfect."

"If you did, I wouldn't believe you. No one is perfect. Everyone is flawed, everyone has cracks."

"Wow, Ruby was right about you."

"What?"

"She said you were...never mind."

"And I am Ruby. Or at least I'm a part of her. I'm one of her cracks, I was made by a catastrophic event in a child's life, her mother being torn from her, being left with an uncaring step father. There was little help."

"Stop that!" Anna wishes she could shout right now. Instead she speaks in a loud whisper, and prays that no one is listening in though from what she can tell, they are in an empty corridor. "Stop being so negative. Don't they always tell you that things will get better? Well, for Ruby, things aren't going to get better. She's going to be stuck here unless I can do something about that. This is cruel, this way of running things here, it's unhealthy, it's corrupt, it's-"

"You're a young woman, Anna. You still have your whole life ahead of you. And you have a chance to leave. Don't let what is happening right now affect you. I'm just telling you what Ruby wants from you."

"But I can fix this, we can get out, I can live with her. I've seen videos online, and there are people with DID who are married or in relationships and they're happy because the partner gets to know the other identities and-"

"They're completely different cases," continues Violet. "All these people have identities that are liveable with, that are controllable, that can work together. These people aren't bothered by them, they can learn to cope. None of them are quite like Lilith."

Anna turns away, bites down on her lip and feels her eyes boring into the wall at the end of the hallway. She doesn't want to hear this. This morning she had been almost expecting that things would be better, once she had a good conversation with Violet or Zola or even managed to get hold of Lilith. She expects she had too much faith in herself.

"I'm sorry. I know that selflessness is a good thing to have. But you need to start taking care of yourself, Anna. Your life is just as important as Ruby's. Schizophrenia or not. You know the origins of your condition started, don't you?"

"I don't. At least, maybe I do, I don't know." She raises her hands to her temples, stroking her forehead. "Naomi tells me my schizophrenia started because of fear running in my family, that I was worried I wouldn't be loved enough. But the thing is, I think it started in high school. Junior or senior year, that was when the uncertainties began. I think...in my mom and dad's eyes, I was their only daughter. Ela didn't count. She didn't even count as one of their children since she had cut off all connections with them."

"But what happened?"

"It was when I started noticing girls. And when I realized I was bisexual, I thought I was some kind of failure. I mean both Ela and Luke were disowned, and I was worried that would happen to me and I couldn't cope with that idea. So I did what I hated myself for every day. I decided to hide my secret. But then-no, I can't do this anymore. I thought this was going to help, I thought talking to you would help Ruby and-!" in frustration, she grunts and thrusts her balled up fist against the wall, tears streaking from her eyes.

"I can't talk to you anymore about this. I'm sorry!"

* * *

 

At exactly six in the evening, she picks up the phone and dialls Charlie's number. She already asked permission from a nurse, you must consult someone before making your own call as most patients only receive calls coming in.

"She's my friend," she explained. "I can give you the number."

It rings twice and all the while, Anna is growing more and more impatient. She has to get this done, she must do this, this is her final hope.

"A patient from the Southern Ohio Mental Health Clinic is trying to call you. To answer, please press one." These are the words she hears from the other end, letting her know that Charlie has picked up. She hears the ping of the key being pressed and then, Charlie's voice, slightly distressed, though she does a good job hiding it.

"What's up, bitch? Something wrong?"

"I'm fine." So maybe she is keeping some stuff secret too. "What's wrong with you?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing."

"Charlie, I know you're lying."

"I'm not lying. I don't know what you're talking about." And then a sigh. "Alright, I'll tell you. I lost my job, okay?"

"Your job?" She racks her brains. "The one at Google? Wow, that...must have been awful."

"Yeah, I'm doing okay. I didn't even last three months. They're giving me five hundred dollars at Christmas but I've got to start searching."

"I'm so sorry, Charlie." She realizes she is saying sorry a lot. "Did that happen today?"

"No, yesterday, got an email. It sucks, right? But what about you? Any news of when you're leaving?"

"They say another month or too," she says, regretfully. She is looking forward to seeing Charlie again, to seeing all her friends.

"You haven't called me before."

"Well, I wanted to speak to you. And I wanted to ask you a favor."

"Sure, go ahead."

"I need you to call a lawyer, or a newspaper, or whoever might be able to help out with what I'm about to tell you next. Write this down, alright?"

"Just getting a pen." There is static at the other end as Charlie moves around. "Got a pen."

"At the Southern Ohio Mental Health Clinic, there is a patient called Ruby Crowley."

"How do you spell that?"

"It's Ruby, then C-R-O-W-L-E-Y. She has dissociative identity disorder and has been in here for seven years. She has never got a visitor and there have been requests made for her to leave but they're been turned down by her guardian and no one's done anything about it."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah. You see, Ruby is my...girlfriend," she whispers. "And I care about her, and I can't bear leaving here and her staying behind. And I need you to do whatever you can, send emails, make phone calls I need to get her out of here."

"Anna, as your ex who is now your best friend, it is my duty to help you in whatever way I can. I promise, I will help you."

* * *

 

Anna steadies herself up against the wall and breathes. A concave mirror hangs on the corner of the ceiling and as she stares at it, she sees her own distorted features. Straight red hair down to her shoulders, a head much too large for her body (not really, just an illusion of the mirror's shape), hazel eyes, wide with her panic and fear, thin lips, chipped from a lack of moisture, a lack of fresh air. Ghostly white skin and a thin jaw.

And slowly, that face vanishes as every single one of her senses is overtaken. By the voices, the voices inside her head. They have returned. In a new form.

_You were nothing to me. A distraction. I don't care about you. You hear me? You were nothing._

No, it has to stop. The voices in her head are suddenly resembling Ruby, the Ruby she had seen just two days earlier, the dismissive Ruby, the hateful, cold Ruby. The loveless Ruby.

_Worthless. A naive child, believing in something that isn't there. So stupid._

The s is a long syllable, held like a hissing snake. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Ruby, approaching her. No, it's not Ruby! She closes her eyes, hoping the hallucination will vanish but when she lets the light back in again, she is still there. She isn't real, she knows that. But she looks like real flesh and blood.

And then at her other side, another Ruby, it is Lilith, gnashing her pearly white teeth, anger in those bloodshot eyes, stepping slowly towards her.

_I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you-_

_Worthless. A naive child, believing something that-_

_-hate you, I hate you, I-_

_-disgrace. I am so ashamed. You are not the woman I raised you to be._

Oh God, they are all around her. Her mother's voice, her father, Cas, Doctor Vizyak and Naomi join the mix.

_People who suffer from bipolar disorder will often hear voices too, although far more commonly with schizophrenia. I think that the latter is the more lik-_

_-Anna can you hear me? Do you know where-_

_-You're acting like you don't care about them, you-_

_-Your faultit'syourfaultitsyourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfault-_

_-hateyouihateyouihateyouihateyoui-_

_-I'm warning you! Stay away from her!_

That is Dean, Dean shouting his warnings like he did that first day Cas, Hannah and Gabriel came to visit her. His warnings had been of Ruby, Anna had known at the time as he had described her, claiming she hurt his brother. Dean's brother died in a car crash so of course, back then, Anna had thought nothing of them. They were just the crazy ramblings of a-sorry, not crazy. The ramblings of a possible schizophrenic, like her, nothing to be taken seriously. But maybe now, there is some truth to his words.

Maybe she should have drawn back from Ruby, maybe she should have kept her distance.

_It your fault. It's your fault. It's your...._

Everything is quiet again. She looks around, expecting hallucination-Ruby or hallucination-Lilith to jump out from around a corner. But all is silent. Everyone is starting today's activities in the rec room.

So she paces back down the corridor although she is much more cautious, still certain that the voices are following her, that they are just waiting for when they can hurt her the most.

She sees the opening to the room, the older patients are playing chess, shuffling the pieces forwards  in their slow manner, dying, dying in here. Like Ruby will. Unless she does something.

There is Dean, at the table, reading a paperback book. The cover faces downwards so she can't see what exactly it is, but he appears buried in it.

_Hello, my name is Dean and I'm here because my brother died in a car crash and I can't deal with his death so I've come up with about other things that happened to him._

Claire and Tessa are sitting on the beanbags, in the middle of a Mario Kart race.

_Hello, my name is Tessa and I'm here because I couldn't focus on my life because of the voices in my head._

_Hello my name is Claire and I'm here because I went into a depression after my parents left and I ended up as a reject in foster care._

She can almost hear the pain, hear the diagnoses. And she wonders what hers is.

_Hello, my name is Anna and I'm here because my fear of my parents discovering my sexuality caused me to live in fear of everywhere I went. Caused me to hear their disapproving voices every time I tried to sleep. Caused me to believe in irrational fears that they had spies waiting under my bed._

She understands the problem. She knows what's wrong now. It is her fault, the voices are right. It's her fault that Ruby's state of mind has gotten worse. It's the only explanation as to why she could have gotten so much worse. Her fault. All her fault.

And so she forgets, forgets that mental illness is absolute, forgets that this whole thing had nothing to do with her. Ruby wants her gone. That's what she wants and that's what will make things better.

She believes this, she actually thinks that what is happening to Ruby is her fault, because that is the cruel beauty of her mind. She can come up with a damaging, destructive idea in her head. And she can believe, with all her strength of heart and soul. And now, she knows what she has to do.

* * *

 

The pills are kept in a secure cabinet. There is no way to get more than her daily dosage so that's off the list of options, obviously. No rope, why would they need  rope? She could use her clothes she supposes, if she could tie her shirt in a tight enough noose, which she doubts she would be able to do without slipping out of it. And where would she tie it, anyway? None of the ceiling lights are hanging, they are all inlaid into the structure of the building. No sharp objects. The use of scissors is prohibited unless you're supervised. Lilith managed to sneak some scissors into Ruby's room, that one time, but the blunt, child's pairs they have would do little damage, not enough to actually do anything life threatening. And even then, the process would be slow, painful. And she could be saved. Anna needs something quick. Anna needs something that can get it all over with quickly.

The windows barely open enough for her to stick two fingers out on. The only reason the doctors would want the windows open would be to let some fresh air in, after all. This whole building is suicide proof. Because they have a bunch of depressed, hazardous wastes of people in here. Like her. People perfectly capable of making rash, amoral decisions. Every safety precaution taken is justifiable. But her safety is not of importance. She needs to end it. Forget how much she wants to leave here, forget how she wants to retake her final year of college, become a journalist, reunite with Charlie, live out the rest of her life with Ruby. She thought talking to Violet would help Ruby's sanity. Then she thought calling Charlie would help. This is a final resort. This is right. Once she is gone, Ruby will be fine, Ruby will get out, she convinces herself, she even finds herself smiling. No time for tears now. She has to just get this done.

Suddenly the thought hits her. The roof. The institute is two storeys, the upstairs floor being made up of offices and psychologist rooms. And the staff room. Two storeys is enough, enough to seriously hurt anyone. She remembers the hatch in the ceiling in Naomi's room. It was locked when she saw it. But all staff members have a set of keys.

Meg is coming towards her right now, approaching in her baby blue nurse's uniform, still wearing her charm necklace and stroking her wrist.

"Hey sweetheart," she says in a tone that resembles an adult talking to a child. "Are you alright."

"Yes, I'm good, thank you." She forces her lips into a toothy smile.

"Really? I swear I heard crying from down here."

"No, not me. But thanks for taking care of me, Meg." She reaches out her arms and as part of an instinct, although seeming perpetually confused, Meg moves into her hug.

Anna pats her on the back twice and then draws back.

"Alright, that was awkward. Want to explain what that was for?"

Anna looks over both her shoulders. "Nothing. I guess I've just seen the light."

"Really? Well, why don't you go and look at that light some longer. I've got to go and check on Ruby, she's been lurking in her room all morning and I've got to do her routine check up."

"Yeah, I'll do that. One favor, Meg. Just...look after Ruby for me. When I'm gone, okay?"

It's clear, Meg thinks she means when she gets moved out of the hospital for she shows no sign of suspicion, just nods, carries on in the direction of Ruby's room.

Anna waits until she is gone before triumphantly pulling the keys she sneaked away from Meg, out of her pocket.

She jogs up the stairs, two at a time. She doesn't have much time, got to do it, get it out the way, before she has a change of heart.

The voices are returning, just as she knew they would.

_Worthless, disgrace, fool, child, should just kill yourself._

"I'm glad I'm not disappointing," she mutters under her breath as she gets to Naomi's room. It is locked, no one is in there. Quickly, she fumbles with the keys, trying to minimise the chiming of metal against metal. One key doesn't quite fit, the silver one next, smaller. She turns it clockwise and the door gives way.

In she goes. The hatch is still there, the sun is white and weak as Christmas comes nearer, it's the first week of November. It's just out of her reach so she pulls one of the chairs into place, directly beneath, feels the material sink as she puts on one foot, then the other. She has to bend now, so she doesn't whack her head on the ceiling. She takes another key, this one of brass, she reckons it will fit. There is a lock on the window handle so she can't just open it straight away.

Looking over her shoulder again, no one is there. But soon, Meg will realize her keys are gone, then it's only a matter of guessing, a matter of sounding an alarm.

The hatch lifts above her and she pushes. This one fully opens, she pushes all the way, until she feels the freezing autumn air sting her face, chill her to the bone. And she climbs. Climbs for her life. Or climbs for her death. She hooks her foot first through the gap, gripping on with both hands until she manages to wriggle her head through the opening, lets her other leg squirm through. She scrapes her knee on the edge, but that doesn't matter. A scratch is nothing compared to the damage her body is about to go through. The damage she won't have time to feel as her broken body lies on the street.

No! No time for doubts. She steps onto the red tiles, keeping her balance. This is the first time she has seen the outside in months. And it is great, she almost wishes she had appreciated the outdoors more. She sighs and then looks back. There are footsteps thundering through the corridor beneath her. Someone is coming.

She edges nearer to the rim of the building. Looks down. A car is just pulling into the car park and now the driver, a woman, she stops, gets out, begins to shout. It is Naomi, on her way into work, she recognizes the auburn bun, the suit.

She closes her eyes. She's going to do it. Dean was right. Ruby killed her. Just like she supposedly killed Sam. Just not in the same way.

She takes that final step and she is toppling forwards when...

"Anna! Anna, stop!"

She spins on her foot. Ruby is there, behind her.

"I don't want to delay you in this," she jokes. "But I really need to have a discussion with you." Hand it to Ruby to find some light heartedness in the worst of situations

"You know I didn't mean what I said to you the other day, Anna. I do care. You can't do this. It would...it would destroy everyone."

"It's me who's stopping you leaving, Ruby. Why do you think you've gotten so much worse while I've been here? It's me."

Ruby shakes her head, slowly. "Have you not listened to a word I've said? Mental illness is absolute. It doesn't care, doesn't care what situation you're in. It attacks whenever it feels like it. You have nothing to do with my attacks, with Lilith, with everything. Anna, I need you to get out of this mindset that it's all your fault and come back inside, don't do this."

"How did you know I was here?"

"It was Meg. She found out you took her keys when she was checking up on me. She told me you'd said something about when you were gone. I knew exactly how you were going to...do it." She means kill yourself.

"It's what happens when you get to know a person well. You know how they think. Please, we can talk about this later. We can get you help. Just come back, Anna. Please. I love you, Anna. I can't imagine time without you but the idea I'd never see you again, you'd never get that long life ahead of you. It's even more unbearable."

Anna wants to go with her. She really does, she wants to go back to Ruby, to kiss her, to take her arm and climb back through the hall, back into the clinic. She wants to swallow her desire to commit suicide, she wants to forget everything. Forget solutions. She is willing to leave, right now. She turns away from the edge as Ruby moves toward her, slowly, steadily.

And then Ruby's foot slips, it catches on the side of one of the tiles. She stumbles, Anna knows what is going to happen before it does, she tries to call out, she tries to reach out, cry out, step forward, but suddenly, she is frozen. And Ruby's arms wheel in the air in slow motion as she falls over, as she collides with the roof once, bounces off and falls to the ground below, leaving the only sound behind an ear splitting scream.


	9. Chapter 9

_The Harry Potter poster already covers half the wall when Anna goes in. The other ginger girl has her hair in a ponytail. She is blue tacking the poster to the wall, though her blue nails keep slipping and the poster keeps rolling down. Already, there are a series of other nerdy posters for comic book franchises, for movies, TV shows. There's a game of thrones poster, a woman with white hair and a dragon on her shoulder in the middle. Of course, Anna, having never seen the show, has no idea what her name is but she is perfectly aware that the woman in the next picture along is Princess Leia._

_She has a selection of figurines of video game characters on the shelves, too. It's obvious she's been here a few hours already to sort everything into the right place. So she's a nerd then. Anna reckons she can handle a nerdy roommate. She'd been expecting some party girl. Not that she should come up with any stereotypes, but she was worried she would not be able to sleep at night with the loud music blaring._

_She spins around and smiles at Anna. The first thing she notices is that she's extremely pretty, and she feels herself blushing. She looks to the floor._

_"What's up? It's Anna, right? Sorry, I'm already mostly moved in. I hope you don't mind, I chose my bed already. If it really upsets you, we can move, I don't mind."_

_"No, it's fine." The girl sure speaks a lot._

_"Would you mind helping me unpack? I can help you, too, but I've still got to get my lightsaber display up. Oh, by the way, I'm Charlie." As she gathers up another box, she holds out one hand to shake which causes quite some imbalance, meaning the box almost topples to the floor, but she quickly regains herself._

_Anna takes her hand, the polite thing to do, shaking firmly and then lending a hand._

_"Here, let me help you with that." She lets Charlie slide her box to her. "Any preference to where you want your things?"_

_"I'm not fussy. Put them wherever you want. Unless it doesn't look right there. Or it breaks the color coordination. You'll see how I'm keeping everything red, blue, pink and white. Anything else, you can leave it in the box and we'll find somewhere for it later. Yeah, okay, maybe I am a little fussy."_

_"Where are you from, Charlie?" Anna asks, unrolling a poster for Avengers._

_"Out of state. Chicago. What about you?"_

_"Near here, actually. About a half hour drive."_

_"Sweet! So your family can come and visit you whenever they want."_

_"Yeah. I'm not really sure that's very often."_

* * *

 

_Anna is sitting on the grass, her laptop resting on her knees as she types up a report. It's a mock film review, her first piece of work this week. This is her third and final year of college, her first year where she isn't part of a sorority. She had wanted to try mixing things up a little, fancied a change._

_It's been years since the end of high school for her, now. Four years and three months to be precise. After that, she travelled for a few years, went across Africa for some sightseeing and even helped out at an orphanage in Uganda. It had just been a week, she had stayed there when she got the children to open up to her, talk about their fears, and their dreams, she even wrote an article, titled 'Just the Same', which the next year when she finally started at the college, got published in their weekly newspaper._

_Now, she is working beside this girl from her class, Cassie is her name. She has frizzy black hair and a bossy attitude. Cassie is just pointing out a spelling mistake when a shout comes from behind them._

_"Yo, roomie, how's it going?"_

_"Hello, Charlie."_

_"Hi." She sits down next to them. "First weeks gone by fast, right? I forgot to ask, what are you majoring in?"_

_"Journalism," both Anna and Cassie say at once._

_"I thought so. You seem like journalistic types to me. I'm IT myself. And what's your name?" she asks Cassie._

_"I'm Cassie Robinson."_

_"Right. You're in charge of the paper, aren't you? I have to say, I really loved that one article, last year, about the problems with catcalling girls. Really great."_

_"Oh, I remember that. I didn't actually write that, though. It was my friend, Jess."_

_"I'd like to meet her. So my friend, Pam, just invited me to this party, it's next Saturday. I was wondering if you wanted to come?"_

_Anna nods, a smile on her face. "Yes, that's sounds great. I'll be there. What time?"_

_"Seven."_

_"And where?"_

_"Don't worry. I'll show you. It will be really great to bring a friend along."_

_______

_Anna laughs as she downs a tequila shot, before throwing the glass back, hard, down onto the table._

_"Enjoying that, are you?" gasps Charlie._

_"I don't drink very much. But this is **so** fun."_

_"Easy there, Anna. It's only your first one."_

_"Well, I need it," she slurs. "To survive this lame party. This music is hurting my head." All the truth comes out in one go._

_"Yeah. I hate this. A bunch of hot, straight white dudes acting like they can sing when we know the only reason they're famous is because of their good looks."_

_"You don't like boy bands?"_

_"Nah. I'm a much bigger fan of girl bands, myself."_

_"I'd say I'm a fan of both."_

_"Am I getting the feeling we're talking less about bands and more about sex preferences here? So this may be drunk me talking, but I'm thinking, maybe we should get out of here, what do you say?" Anna just makes out in the dimly lit room, among all the flashing lights and people dancing while drunkenly singing along to what words they know, that Charlie has just winked at her._

_______

_Anna sighs, opening her mouth wide and shutting her eyes, as she feels Charlie kiss her way down her naked chest, down her abdomen to her hips, moving her hands in just the right way that made everything about this feel just so perfect, so surreal. Never could she have imagined what a thrill this would be._

_Charlie appears from under the blanket, and Anna takes her hands._

_"I think you're all tired out there. We need a break."_

_This is the third time they have done this, since the party, yet they have never had time for a proper discussion._

_"Yes. We should probably do some actual sleeping now." Anna slides off the mattress, her blanket wrapped around her like a toga, and reaches for her pyjamas. As she is sliding on the top half and trying to reach her arms into the air without letting go of the blanket so it won't expose her nude body. Although why she is being so self conscious, she has no idea._

_"Looking good over there, Ariel."_

_"What did you just call me, Charlie?"_

_"Ariel. Like in the Little Mermaid. You look like her, with the red hair."_

_"You have red hair, too."_

_"My hair's ginger. Your hair is red. Like, it's sort of burgundy and mine's more of an orange. Hey, maybe you can be Ariel and I can be Merida."_

_"Like in Brave?"_

_"Exactly."_

_"You'd need a Scottish accent first."_

_Charlie tries this out and fails miserably. "My name is Princess Merida and I like to playing with bows and arrows."_

_Anna laughs. "Hey, I've just realized," she begins as she finally lets the blanket go, completely dressed now. Her stomach is rumbling, painfully. "We haven't had any dinner. I've got some microwavable, veggie curry in the fridge._

_"Come on, dude. I want a real takeaway, not that...refrigerated stuff."_

_"Erm, no. I think...I think we should have this. Because I really fancy this tonight." Anna doesn't yet quite understand why she won't eat food prepared by strangers. But she is soon to find out._

_"Alright. I'm just going to take a shower. You can cook. I'll be back in a few minutes. And don't be offended that I want a shower the second we've finished having sex."_

_"Well, I wasn't, but now you've mentioned it, I am a little."_

_Charlie laughs and lets the door swing shut, behind her._

_Anna gets the curry out of the fridge first, pops it in a heat proof container and pops it in the microwave, pressing the button for five minutes. And then, she suddenly gets the odd feeling that someone is in there with her._

_She checks under the bed first. Behind the door, peers out into the corridor, although a pyjama wearing red head, looking flustered and pink cheeked is hardly the nicest sight on a Tuesday night._

_She can't think who would want to spy on her, maybe some horny teenage boy with a lesbian fetish, other than that, her options are clean and she happens to know the youngest boy here is eighteen and in a separate building. But still, she can't shake this idea that there was a spy here at some point, that now they have sneaked off to give information to..._

_Her mother. Or her father. Those are the people she is sure would be spying on her, right now. They'll find out about this, they know, they watch her every move and when they do-_

_Charlie comes out of the bathroom, dripping wet, just as the microwave beeps to signify that the food is ready._

_"That sure smells good. I can't wait-" she trails off and frowns as she catches sight of Anna._

_"What's wrong?"_

_"Nothing. Why?"_

_"You look like you've seen the Bloody Baron, or something." She laughs at her own Harry Potter reference._

_"No. Everything's fine. Let's eat." Anna serves the curry into two bowls, complete with rice, and she grabs a jar of mango chutney, and some forks._

_"So, I gotta ask you something," says Charlie._

_"Yeah?" she replies with a mouthful of food._

_"We've had sex three times now, and never actually discussed this. But I'm just going to come out and say it. Would you like to be my girlfriend."_

_"I'm sorry, I thought that was where we already are."_

_"What?"_

_"Well, kissing? Isn't that exclusive to relationships?"_

_"You have no idea, do you?"_

_"Uh, no. Not really." She shrugs. "Sorry. But yeah. Being your girlfriend sounds great."_

* * *

 

_She sits in her room, flicking through the photos on her camera. Charlie watches from next to her. The most recent are about a dozen of the two of them making silly faces at the camera. Charlie sticking her tongue out, Anna going cross eyed (one of her proudest talents), one of Charlie kissing Anna's cheek while she gives her most horrified expression to the lens._

_"Beautiful," says Charlie. "Yeah, I look so hot." She is now pointing to one where she is holding her head back so that it appears she has about three chins._

_"You should go on America's Next Top Model."_

_"I know, right?"_

_Anna bounces once on the mattress and draws her soft pillow up to her chest._

_"This is one I took of the sunset, yesterday. And this is an architecture one that I took of the Science building. And I'm thinking of making this one completely grayscale. Other than the flower," she adds._

_"Sounds cool. Play me a song, bitch. I'm tired."_

_Anna switches off her camera and bends over, just for a second, picking up her keyboard._

_"What should I play?"_

_"Star Wars theme tune."_

_This is one she has been practising for a while now and she begins. Charlie is nodding her head along when Anna's finger slips._

_"Frick. What was that?" Charlie asks._

_"Sorry, I just got a little jumpy for a second."_

_"Well, if there's anything I can do about that..." she says, seductively._

_"Charlie, please. I think I'm done with this."_

_"You only just started."_

_Thankfully, her computer making a buzzing noise as it received a Skype call gives her the distraction she needs. As she moves the mouse, she says "Oh, it's my brother." And she clicks to answer._

_"Hello, Cas."_

_"Uh, it's nice to see you, Anna."_

_"I've missed you so much, Cas. How's law school?"_

_"Erm, good. Yes, law school is good," he answers in his gruff voice._

_"Hi!" calls Charlie from behind her, before Anna can stop her._

_"Hello? Erm, I'm not sure I know who you are?"_

_"This is Charlie," Anna replies for her. "She's my...friend."_

_"Yeah, and roommate." For a minute, Anna thinks Charlie s about to say something else but luckily, she has caught on._

_"And have you seen mom and dad? They're coming to visit me, tomorrow."_

_"No, I haven't, actually. I haven't heard anything from them, all semester."_

_"Oh." That is what he leaves his reaction as, a remarkably unsurprised "no."_

_And that is all their conversation is, a few words tossed back and forth, not like a brother and sister should be, at least, not twins who get on as well as they do. Or get on as well as they used to._

_"I suppose I should...bye then." The young man's face vanishes from the screen._

_"So, he seems dreamy."_

_Anna looks at her, sideways. "Don't talk about him like that. He's my brother."_

_"I'm not saying I'm attracted to him. I'm just saying, I can see why a girl...or a boy, might be attracted to him. That's all."_

_Anna smiles and is getting up to fiddle with the DVD player, hopeful to maybe entice Charlie into a Harry Potter marathon._

_"So what was up with you not telling him I was your girlfriend?"_

_"Nothing, nothing."_

_"You said your brother wasn't homophobic."_

_"He's not. At least he wasn't."_

_"So what's the problem now?"_

_"I don't know. I just...I'm not ready to come out yet. That's it. That's all. So? Harry Potter marathon?"_

_"Sure. Hey, we should watch them backwards."_

_"What? You mean watch them on rewind?"_

_"No. I mean start with the Deathly Hallows part 2, and end with the Sorcerer's Stone."_

_"And we can see whoever stays awake longest."_

_"Deal."_

_But as Anna is leaning her head into Charlie, she can't help but worry, he can't help but ponder. What if Cas figured out something was going on with the two of them. What if he goes and reports to her parents, tomorrow? What if she is doomed?_

_______

_It's the  beginning of Spring term and since she got back from staying at home over Christmas, things just haven't quite seemed right. For example, as she sat at the table, as she dug into her roast potatoes and stuffing, she felt her mother's eyes on her. Like she knew, like she knew her secret._

_She was reading her mind. Her mother could read minds somehow. She knew about Charlie, she knew about everything, about her bisexuality, about her letters to Ela, she was finding out about Gadreel. And everything is so nerve racking._

_Her mother will never approve, she knows that. She always has. Since they attended their stringly conservative church when she was just a child._

_"Man shall not lie with man. It is an abomination." The words of her pastor. And Anna had wondered, is it the same with women? That was after she had actually discovered from her older brothers what both to 'lie with someone' and 'abomination' actually met._

_Her attraction to girls in high school had felt like nothing strange. It felt innate, it felt just as right as liking boys. Except, maybe a little better. Because, theoretically, boys were attractive but on the other hand, they could be so annoying at that age._

_Still, back then, she had stayed away from that side of her. She had dated a few boys, and liked them, and she knew when her parents discovered, they were silently relieved, as long as they didn't have sex before marriage, seeing as that was another thing they disagreed with._

_She had grown up with her parents' Republican views for far too long. And even though she disagrees with what it taught, the sexism, the racism, the homophobia, the countless other forms of discrimination, her parents had ingrained it so deeply within her that she can hardly see herself escaping._

_And now it seems like there is someone watching her and every turning. A person hiding behind every lamp post, a person staring at her from every window, and rather comically, a person lurking within every trash can. She is not safe, she cannot go anywhere, she is being stalked._

_She is unaware of her strange habits, how she is going out in evenings less, how she has stopped using toothpaste to brush her teeth, how she insists on checking her room every night before bed, how she has taken to only eating ready meals that can be popped instantly into the microwave._

_Charlie, though loud, bold, talkative, is sensitive as well and she does no something is wrong. Jess and Becky and Pamela and all her other friends are less worried, but they don't know her quite as well. After all, they haven't seen her naked._

_Charlie is constantly interrogating her, trying to find the source of the issue but Anna, in all her stubbornness, in all her fear of bothering others or making them laugh at her, refuses to give in._

_Anna likes Charlie. She likes her a lot. But there is less romance there, more a consoling friendship. And a desire for sex. Yeah, that part is true. But she has to tell Charlie, she can't keep going with her like this, they have to just be friends again. Who knows, maybe the oldest cliché in the book will work._

* * *

 

_Anna presses herself up against Charlie's breasts, squeezing them and feeling her writhe and turn beneath her in pleasure. She gropes her ginger hair in one hand, doing a lot more with the other, and Charlie has her eyes closed, in between breaths, she is smiling, like in Heaven._

_Neither of them have quite the capacity to talk now, but when Charlie finally calls for her to stop, she rises above the blankets._

_"How was that?"_

_Charlie shrugs as she begins to put her bra back on. "Fine."_

_"Really. Because I know someone who would resist otherwise." She gestures downwards._

_"Dude, you have a real dirty mouth."_

_"It's not like I actually said it."_

_"Be honest. How was it really? Are you worried you'll lose your spotlight as the, I don't know, the sexmistress?"_

_Charlie giggles in an embarrassed way. "Anna Milton, never ever say that again. But, alright, it was better than fine. Average I'd say."_

_"Average?"_

_"I'm talking the representation of Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter movies."_

_"That's even worse than fine."_

_"The representation of Hermione in the Harry Potter movies."_

_"That's better."_

_"What can I say? I've trained you well, my young padawan."_

_Anna laughs at Charlie's ability to subtly slip media references into every single sentence._

_"Look, I have something to tell you."_

_"Oh God. You used protection, didn't you? You're not pregnant, are you?" she asks in fake horror. All of this she says in a very amused way._

_"No. It's...it's more serious than that. Charlie, I like you, alright-"_

_"Anna, you couldn't be more of a stereotype."_

_"What?"_

_"I like you, alright? Oldest line in the book." Charlie doesn't seem too shocked._

_"Can you let me finish? I like you, but I think we're better off as friends. I mean, we marathon Harry Potter, we study and take selfies, we fangirl over things. I think...those are things best friends do, not girlfriends, if you get what I mean."_

_She expects some kind of negative reaction, even though Charlie isn't the type to take offence, to be melodramatic about things. But she gets no negative reaction._

_"I think I see where you're coming from here. If that's what makes you happy, for us to break things off, it's what makes me happy too. Who knows, maybe one day I'll find my Xena."_

* * *

 

_It's three weeks before their first exams, which means everyone is in a panic, suddenly cramming in as much revision as they can handle, which, when she thinks about it, isn't too much. It's four in the afternoon, lesson time is over and she is taking this time to pick up tips from her friends._

_Her and Cassie and Jess and Pamela and Becky are sprawled out on the lawn in front of the student center. Anna bites down on a cereal bar. Charlie is nowhere in sight, she is up in their room, working on her own computer program._

_The pair of them split on relatively good terms. Charlie was happy, Anna was mildly happy, as in, she knew this was the healthy thing to do for Charlie, it has been almost two semesters now of them being apart. To be fair, they were hardly together a very long time, September to January, not making them a power couple, not so they were entitled to a group ship name since the only person Anna had trusted enough to tell was Cassie. And Cassie had called them Miltonbury._

_Charlie and Anna still call themselves friends, good friends, even best friends. They still have their marathons, they still take selfies, they still eat together, and sleep in the same room. Just no longer in the same bed. So things aren't that different._

_One time, she caught Charlie in bed with another girl, named Gilda.. It turned out the tie they put on the door had fallen down so Anna didn't see it and ended up walking in, much to her own embarrassment, as well as theirs._

_"Dude, when the tent is rockin', don't come a 'knockin'" Charlie had said, trying to hide her red cheeks._

_But had Anna been jealous? No, not at all. She had moved on._

_It was never going to work out, anyway. Best she ended it sooner than later. Charlie had to find her Xena and Anna had to find her...person. Whatever gender._

_Right now, she isn't really speaking to any friends, just reading over old papers, old essays, hoping she will become inspired. People are finally beginning to notice her nervousness, which seems unfortunate for her, but they are blaming it on exam stress._

_"Sweetheart, there's no need to worry," Pam said to her one time. "Only a few more weeks and then it will all be over._

_"Yeah, Anna, I'm sure you'll be fine," Jess followed up with, patting her on the shoulder._

_She is reading. **"The title of this headline uses alliteration to-"**_

_Then she hears it, silent at first but rapidly building up. It's the beating of her own heart, like a drum. The words of her friends are drowned out and she covers her ears. They are calling out to her, she views their moving lips but does she hear them? No. She is drowning. That's what it feels like as the voices slowly take over._

**_Anna Milton. An abomination. A dirty whore. She is possessed by the Devil, he has tempted her into this wrong doing. There is nothing that can be done for that fiend now._ **

_A voice, unfamiliar, yelling, preaching. She is swiftly turning around, trying to find its source but no one is there. No one, but her friends. And then, she hears her mother._

**_You're a fool. A waste of space. By biggest regret. A disgrace._ **

**_She's right. You're nothing. Nothing, you hear me. I told her all about you. You and your secret girlfriend._ **

_"LEAVE ME ALONE!" she yells. "LEAVE US ALONE! DON'T HURT ME!" And then she realizes the more important situation. "Don't hurt them." She begins to scrape at the air for she sees shadows of people vanishing and reappearing, like ghosts, cruel malevolent, ghouls that speak with the voices of her mother, her father, and her dearest brother._

_And soon, there are more people. They are solid and they are making contact with her as she kicks and screams, placing their hands on her and dragging her away, but all she can concentrate on is the whispers that taunt her and lay waste to her mind._

* * *

 

This is what she is reminded of now, that day when her schizophrenia finally took full effect, when she was carted off to here. Her flashbacks of that day, the memories resurfacing, and oh, those cruel voices, they are coming back. Along with a scream. An ear splitting scream. Dear Lord, why won't it stop?

And then she realizes her own mouth is open. Her tongue is dry, her eyes are squeezed tight in terror. She is the one screaming. And Ruby is fallen. Fallen off the roof, fallen away from Anna, away from all of them. Fallen to...

She is dead. And Anna sentenced her to death. Anna is her executioner.

The hands are tight on her wrists, Meg, and a horde of other nurses, pulling her down, back through the hatch, restraining her with their arms, ignoring her screaming, but it taking a lot of effort to hold her still. There will probably be grip marks on her wrists, and bruises on her body, but that doesn't matter to her. These things heal. Your heart doesn't.

In fact, so much effort that they have to resort to extreme measures. One orderly comes along, he holds a needle, she sees the sharp, silvery point. Chemical restraints. All the drugs within that needle, to beckon her into a temporary coma. The needle slides into her vein, and she feels a pinch.

The last thing she remembers is that Ruby is dead: Ruby's dead and it's her fault.


	10. Chapter 10

As if the Earth has fallen away from beneath her feet. As if she is covered in a raging, living fire. As if her heart is being stabbed by burning hot needles, again and again and again and again. This is just a little of what she can compare to the endless guilt which consumes her.

She bashes her head against the soft padded wall, waits five seconds, then repeats.

Sometimes she lashes out, sometimes she kicks, hoping eventually it will all be too much for her, that the exhaustion will put her to sleep. Sleep is not ideal right now. And death, is not ideal either, why was she so stupid? She just needs a break, a break from life. She wishes life were like a Youtube video and you can rewind or fast forward or pause. What she wants right now is a pause. She wants a hole to open up and swallow her and let her be alone to ponder things, to ponder her mistakes.

Of course, she is alone now, and she has time to ponder her mistakes now, but she wants something more than that. She wants to escape to a place where she isn't Anna Milton, the crazy girl who can't sleep because of the voices.

The voices don't trouble her so much, not any more. She doesn't need them now, she is already generating her own despair. But occasionally, they will call out words, phrases, giving her more prompts for herself hatred and loathing.

She has been locked in solitary for what feels like days now, she has no watch, there is no clock so no way of knowing the time. It was where she woke up once the drugs had worn off. However, by her estimation, she knows from the number of meals that have been brought to her that it has been about two days. She is about to huddle up into a corner, try to get some sleep, when she hears the slow creak of the door being gently pushed inwards.

She glances upwards and there is Meg. Except she has no hospital uniform on, or if she does, it is concealed by her black and slightly puffy coat that she is wearing, like she is about to go outside. Anna also sees that her makeup has been done very messily so that her dark eye shadow is smudged, only emphasising the purple bags, like bruises, beneath her eyes. Her foundation is patchy so some areas of skin are darker than others and not much effort has been put into her hair which has a messy parting. So she is worrying, too.

"Anna? Are you feeling okay? I was just going t bring you your meds."

Anna looks back down at her feet which she has drawn in, up to her chest.

"I get it, you don't want to talk. It's just as much my fault as yours though." She shuts the door again behind her, gently, comes to sit down beside Anna, setting the little pill container down in front of her.

"I should have figured out something was wrong and alerted some members of staff when you were acting all like that, but I just figured you were happy. Should have seen how much Ruby meant to you."

"No, Meg! Stop! It was me!"

"Anna. You can't blame yourself. You have-"

"Yeah, I'm a schizophrenic. I can still control what I'm doing. I should have known Ruby would come after me. It's my fault. She followed me up to that roof. She tried to save me because of my own stupid mistake."

"So you wish you hadn't gone up to that roof?"

"Yeah, I do. It was...the voices who told me to. Who told me it would all be better." She sobs, her chest heaving and her spine wracking with convulsions. "They told me it was my fault she was getting so much worse. And now it's my fault she's dead."

"She's not dead."

"What are you going to say now? That she's alive in all our hearts," Anna says, bitterly.

"No. I mean, she's not dead."

Anna freezes. Is this some kind of dream. At the same time, she feels more alert, more alive.

" The fall didn't kill her. She bounced off one of the lower terraces which softened her fall a bit, they think. She's in hospital, hurt badly, but alive. She's in a coma, but she's breathing on her own. They say there's a high chance that she'll wake up. It's just her leg. It was bashed up and they say, if she does wake up, she won't be able to walk with it. There's a high chance she'll need crutches for the rest of her life."

Anna feels delight. The guilt begins to lower slowly, and then stops. "But it was still me. I still hurt her like that. She could have died, she could have been brain dead. It's just the same, I-"

"Stop, Anna. Claire told me you're like that. You're modest. Have some self confidence, have a little pride in yourself. It's not your fault that you're like this. A large number of schizophrenics will attempt suicide and...it was just a matter of wrong place, wrong time. You have to forgive yourself."

Anna nods, though she knows this forgiving, will take a lot of time. She has never had much pride in herself, she could never even come out to her parents for fear of being accepted.

"Aren't you not supposed to tell me about other patients."

" _Staff members,_ aren't supposed to tell you about other patients. I'm not a staff member. I quit, just now."

"What?"

"Yeah. An article was published in the New York Times this morning about mental clinics. And a section of it was about this wonderful place. It mainly focused on the story of a young, unnamed patient who has been _imprisoned_ here for seven years, ignored and in isolation. Apparently, the staff let things get so out of hand for her and paid so little attention that she attempted suicide and is now in critical condition."

"Ruby?"

"Uh huh. The staff are trying to cover it up, and all trying to find out who did it. Apparently, there was an inside source who gave some of this information away." Meg gives her a knowing grin.

"Do they know it was me?"

"They suspect, but they have no proof so can't do anything about it."

"So why did you quit?"

"Some lawyers are coming in, talking of getting this place under new management and talking of getting the unnamed patient, sent to stay with a guardian and having a psychologist come and see her for a few hours every day. They say getting out and being social might be the best thing for her now."

"She's going to stay with Az?"

"Nope. It's not all sorted yet, but I've got my own apartment. Ruby will come and live with me if she wakes up."

"That's-that's great news."

"I'll find myself another job and hopefully, hire someone to take care of her while I'm working."

"So I guess I'm going to stay here," says Anna in a melancholy way, with her head hung.

"Wrong again. They're actually thinking of letting you out a little before Christmas."

"Are they?"

"I don't know why, probably some other bullcrap reason. I said I'd come in here to give you your meds before I leave for the last time."

"Oh, Meg." Anna hugs her and Meg smiles.

"Better not steal my keys this time." They break apart. "I have one more question for you. I have to say, I've read your file, and I figure things aren't so good between you and your parents. So, you know, in the time before you go back to college and when you're out of here, if you don't want to live with your parents then you can always come and stay with me."

Anna blushes at the offer. "That's nice of you, Meg. But I think I'm going to take my chances at home."

"Well, know you can always call me if you change your mind. In fact, here you are." She reaches into her handbag and withdraws a notebook and pen, rips a page from the notebook and scribbles down a series of numbers. "Add this to your phone once you get it back. You know where to find me."

* * *

 

It is winter. In fact, it is a snowy day, the snow fell the night before, settling thickly on the grass below and the roof of the institution. Anna is glad of this. She is glad that the first time she sets foot outside will be in the snow.

And there will be snow on her birthday. Obviously, not much snow. Within a day, it will have all turn to watery sludge due to the salt thrown in the streets. Older people aren't as welcoming of cold weather as she is.

The staff thought it would be nice to make sure she is out before her birthday, before Christmas, so what better to do than to ask her mother to come and collect her the very day before her birthday.

She stands in the lobby now and apart from when she was brought in here, she has never seen the inside of the lobby, it has always been a great mystery to her what visitors see when they come in. And now she knows, she wasn't missing out on much. It is a room, a little too orange for her liking, with green chairs, very different to the orange chairs in the rec room. She will never see that rec room again, assuming everything goes well for her. Does she care? Not really.

She has been bundled up into a coat, otherwise she'll freeze to death before she's even back in the safety of her bedroom, so they say. She has had to hand back her soap and toothbrush and toothpaste and pyjamas, and unplug the computer from her room here. Meanwhile, she has packed up all her own clothes, and her keyboard separately. And in her back pocket, she has Meg's number. Just in case.

Anna is looking forward to seeing Charlie again, she wants a big reunion with Ruby once she gets out of hospital. She has heard nothing more about her though she hopes she is awake again. It has been more than a month since Meg quit her job, since the suicide attempt. A month of deafening silence.

She is looking forward to seeing Cas, Gabriel, Hannah, Balthazar, giving Gadreel an extra large hug as she understands the pressure he is under. She hopes to properly get back in contact with Ela and Luke. A psychologist is to come and see her once a week, although he will see her less often as she begins to cope better. They say, maybe there will be a day when she will be able to live a perfectly normal, healthy life.

She is to stay at home, until the beginning of the summer, when she can pick up where she left off back at the same college. She has been informed by Doctor Vizyak that the school are offering a discount, seeing as her state of mind had not been perfect when she was pulled out, so she can retake her final semester without it costing so many dollars. She expects her parents are thrilled.

Most of all, she dreads seeing her mother and father. She knows now she has to come out to them. _Have a little pride in yourself,_ like Meg said. And she is going to. When she figures out how exactly. But who knows? Maybe they will have changed. Unlikely but just maybe.

The sleek silver Porsche pulls into the drive, and the woman sitting at the reception desk looks up, her face a mask of envy. A woman climbs out of the right hand door,  buttoning up her trenchcoat which is definitely not suitable for this weather. She looks could for her age, a woman of nearly sixty trying to pretend to be a woman of thirty. She has a good figure, tall, slim, though her pale cheeks, quite like her daughter's, are beginning to wither away.

She resembles her daughter in more than one way, the main feature they share being their red hair. Though Mrs Milton has Cas's eyes. Narrow, a sapphire blue, frozen in a permanent state of confusion.

There is an air of authority about her, like she can get people to do anything she wants, making her a person not to be messed with. And then, she comes in, through the automatic doors, looking absolutely revolted at what she sees around her.

 _Colour scheme, vulgar, staff, vile._ Anna can almost hear the thoughts processing through her head.

"Ah, Anna. How good to see you." She speaks like a queen, she probably thinks she is a queen, probably explaining where she gets her pride from. Maybe just a little too much pride, Anna thinks.

"You must be Mrs Milton," Doctor Vizyak starts, before she can beg her not to. "I'm Anna's doctor, Doctor Eleanor Vizyak. Would you mind coming into my office for a quick word."

"I'm afraid I don't have time for that." Anna is sure she does have time and just doesn't want to. Her mother gives one final tut, as the keyboard is handed over for her to carry, and then she half drags Anna out of the door.

Dean and Claire are still inside. Since the incident, Tessa has been allowed to go home, too. Just two members of the gang left behind. She sighs.

Once they are a good few meters away from the building, her mother gives her a hug. It is awkward, Mrs Milton's shoulders are too tense, like she cannot simply relax around her own daughter.

"Come on. Let's get out of here as fast as we can," she sharply demands.

They get in the car. Her mother loads her things into the back and Anna takes a backseat. Gadreel is there, too, looking all smart in a brand new suit and shiny blue tie. He's driving. He gives her what she classes as a weak grin. Poor Gadreel. Poor, poor Gadreel. Hiding himself away for the rest of his miserable business life. Just like her.

"Here, I brought you your handbag," he says to her, very seriously. He hands over her satchel. It is lime green and light brown and she used to use it to carry around school books.

"I put in your credit card and phone and purse and keys and, yeah-"

Their mother gets in, nodding to him to drive. The Milton home is around forty five minutes away, down a small interstate. The journey is long, quiet, tiresome. For most of it, she gazes out of the window and the snow capped hills on either side of them. Christmas lights are up everywhere, obviously for it is the season to be jolly. As they are coming into her own area, she sees some old high school friends, Hael and Muriel, coming up the street wrapped in tinsel and wearing Santa hats. Nearly all the houses on her street have more lights than they can bear. The electricity is blinding. This is when her mother decides to begin a conversation.

"It's best we get all...that behind you, don't you think, Anna?"

Anna doesn't speak.

"I mean, none of us, particularly you, want to remember that horrible place."

 _You could have come to visit me._ The words she should say and also the words she doesn't say.

"Did you hear what happened? It was in the papers. A girl was locked away in there seven years! Must have been a real nutter. Apparently, she couldn't bear it anymore. Threw herself from the roof. It's almost unfortunate she survived. Honestly, a suicide attempt. Did you know her, Anna?"

She hates how all the papers make it sound like falling off the roof was Ruby's choice. Anna has been entirely erased from the articles, maybe because it's irrelevant to the story, maybe because she doesn't help make their point. Or maybe they just don't know she was there. But most articles treat Ruby like a victim. Anna's mother treats Ruby like she was the one who deserved to be punished, like ending up with a mental illness is her own fault. And this makes Anna angry.

"Yes. I did know her," Anna says calmly. "Very well. She was my girlfriend."

"Oh, that's nice, dear. Nice to know you made some friends back in _there."_

But Gadreel has stiffened.

"No, she wasn't a friend. She was my girlfriend. I was in love with her." A beat. "I'm bisexual."

Anna's mother waits for Gadreel to pull the car into a parking space and then swivels around.

"You're what?"

"Bisexual. It means I'm sexually attracted to two or more genders."

"I know what _it_ means." Suddenly, her voice is very dry, very sore. "All the magazines going on about that English model with those horrific eyebrows who claims to be...like that. But my point is, you can't be attracted to more than one gender. Pick a side."

"Bisexuality is a real thing!" Anna yells, her face burning scarlet as she feels the fire let out of her lungs. "And it's what I am! And if you can't accept that, you-"

"Enough!" her mother shouted. "Clearly that place has done some damage to you."

" _That place_ did nothing to me, mom. I was born like this, bisexuality isn't a choice! You can't be turned bisexual!"

"Wait until your father hears about this. He'll set you straight!"

Anna is on the verge of tears. But it suddenly feels like a great weight has been  taken off her shoulders. She thinks for a second, and then comes to a decision.

"He won't get to hear about this. At least, not from me. I'm leaving mom. You can't stop me. I'm twenty three years and three hundred and sixty four days old. I'm old enough to make choices for myself. And I won't live with a family where I'm not accepted! It's alright. I'll leave as soon as I've gathered my things." She slams the car door, running for her own front door, fiddling with the keys and running upstairs.

She is packed within half an hour. Two suitcases, a series of clothes. Her keyboard, she has to have that. All her art stuff. Her books on journalism, her laptop and iPod. Her birthday card from Charlie the year before, her camera and its charger. Some sheet music, and her pyjamas. This is it, this is her life, packed into two cases. As she heads down the stairs, she finds herself face to face with Gadreel. They embrace.

"Good luck, bro. I hope you learn to make the right choices," she whispers in his ear.

"It's gonna be difficult without you," he gives as an answer.

"Say bye to the others for me," she tells him. "Except for Dad and Michael. Tell them to stick their crap up their asses. No one wants to look up there."

* * *

 

Meg is more than welcome to take her in, though she is slightly embarrassed, at not being able to last an hour with her own family. She explains to Meg what happened.

"Well, good for you. Your mom sounds like a real bitch."

"Yeah. She is. This was really nice of you, Meg."

"It's no trouble."

"I should probably go to bed now. I'm gonna be twenty four in the morning."

"Oh my God, it's your birthday tomorrow? I didn't know. Don't worry though. I'll make sure you get an extra special surprise.

* * *

 

In the morning, Anna trudges sleepily to the table. Since they only live in a small apartment, they eat and sleep in the same room, the only other room being a bathroom. Twenty four years ago, at seven forty eight in the morning, a little red headed baby was born, right after her black haired, blue eyed brother half an hour earlier.

And on the breakfast table is an enormous chocolate cake, complete with chocolate icing, and little chocolate candies, and candles, already lit and ready, like Meg had known the exact second that she was going to wake up. She counts two candles on the left hand side and four on the right. She guesses Meg couldn't have fit twenty four whole candles. In more chocolate icing, a slightly darker shade implying it may be plain chocolate, it says _HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNA._

"Chocolate cake's my favorite food," she tells Meg.

"Good, because I just made the first cake recipe I found online. I figured most people like chocolate cake so I was playing it safe. We can have it for breakfast, if you want."

"Sure."

Meg switches off the lights so the brightness of the candles becomes more intense. The wax is already melting from them so Anna had better do this quick.

"Happy birthday to you," Meg sings, unenthusiastically. "Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Anna! Happy birthday to you!" The last line if the loudest and the one held the longest. As soon as she is done, Anna blows out the candles like a child. It takes a few attempts for her to get all of them, but when she does, Meg plucks them out and hands her a knife.

"Make a wish."

As the blade reaches the bottom of the cake, Anna screams as loud as she can muster.

"What the Hell was that?" Meg asks once her fingers have been removed from her ears.

"Oh, you don't do that? In my family, we used to scream when we cut the cake. Never mind."

"Well, you almost gave me a heart attack!"

Anna can't help but find it funny. "Sorry," she smirks. As they dig in, Anna finally gathers up the courage to ask the big question. "How's Ruby doing?"

Meg waits until she's finished her mouthful to reply. "Still unconscious. But there's barely any need for the ventilator, her brain seems to be perfectly functioning and she can breathe on her own mostly. Her eyes are beginning to open, too. But the doctors have tried asking her questions, they've asked her to blink and stuff if she can hear them and she doesn't."

"It's been a month now."

"Sometimes people wake up after months and months. It's not like this would be unusual. They keep telling me that there's a high chance she will wake up at some point. We just don't know when. And I believe she's gonna wake up. But maybe we should start expecting the worst, just in case."

Meg now takes Anna's plate and stacks it on top of hers. "I get why you did what you did, kind of. You were told you were going to leave that place, any you couldn't bear leaving her behind. You were in love with her and you couldn't lose her. You couldn't just stop loving her. Love is absolute."

Anna almost drops her knife in shock. "Where did you hear that?"

"Oh, the absolute thing? When I was tidying up Ruby's room, I found a notebook. Mostly full of poetry ideas and stuff but I found this one comparing illness to love. Because they're both absolute or something. I can find it for you, I-" She rummages around in the suitcase she previously packed up for Ruby but still hasn't unpacked. And when she finally retrieves it, she opens the book on a page about halfway through:

_Illness is not a relative,_

_It does not care,_

_Whether you reside in joy, peace,_

_A time of happiness you can share_

_The prime of your life._

_But it would also dare,_

_To disturb you as your days grow short,_

_In the cold winter air,_

_When you are ready and welcoming._

_Love is not a relative,_

_It is strong,_

_Even when the tides of life crash through,_

_Even when it is wrong._

_It depends not on gender,_

_Or age, or size._

_It is long,_

_It endures forever and cannot be changed,_

_Or runs out of its own accord._

_It is infinity, an ever fixed mark,_

_Love is absolute._

There are annotations around the side of this poem. Towards the end, she runs out of rhymes for 'wrong' and starts to just make it up. She uses a line from Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, Anna recognizes that from English lit class in high school. But otherwise, it is beautiful. She wipes a tear from her eye.

"Meg, is Ruby going to take classes?"

Meg nods. "I expect so."

"She wants to be a poet. She used to write poems all the time. That was how I met her, you know, she was scribbling some poem ideas and I came and sat with her at the breakfast table. Six months ago. And now, she's gone."

Meg takes now as the time to try to change the subject. "I'm sorry I didn't buy you a present, by the way. I had no idea you were coming or-"

"Don't worry about it. It's not your fault."

"I could get you something later. We could go out shop-" And then Meg's mobile starts to ring. Meg picks up.

"Hello? Who is this? Doctor-so you work at the hospital where my sister is?"

Anna tenses up, waiting to know. Good news or bad news?

"Oh my God. That's-that's great news. I'll be right there." She hastens to grab her car keys. "That was the hospital. Ruby's awake."

* * *

 

A hand is held out in front of Anna, right before she can get through to the intensive care ward.

"Which patient are you hear to see?" says the bulky security guard.

"Ruby Crowley," Meg answers, before Anna can open her mouth. On her way, they stopped to pick up some flaming red flowers.

"Relation to patient?"

"I'm her step sister."

"You can go in. What about you?" he snarls at Anna.

"I'm her friend," she stammers.

"You have to wait until the patient gives permission for you to come in. Take a seat."

Anna takes a seat in one of the cold, white, plastic chairs. She hates hospitals, maybe even more than she hates the clinic she was in. Her mother hates hospitals because she hates the sick, probably worried she'll catch Ebola or something, even though she lives in North America and the disease is in West Africa. But Anna hates hospitals because of the scent of death.

She scribbles with a set of pens and felt tips she has at the bottom of her satchel, her main colors being red, black and green.

"Hey, you!" It's the guard again, calling her across the room and causing her to drop all her pens on the floor.

"She's ready to see you now."

As Anna goes through the room, removing her jacket and putting on a plastic apron, covering her hands in the special soap they have hanging outside each door, she passes Meg on her way out, and finds Ruby, sitting, looking awfully bored, in a wheelchair which she is moving back and forward. There is a bed, but she is not using it at the moment, and she has been disconnected from most of the machines though a wire still trails into her arm and she has some sort of scanner thing attached to her finger.

"What's up, Red Berry?" she asks, miserably. "Are you going to tell me that you're my long lost cousin, or something?"

Anna struggles to think what she is talking about. "Oh, right, you didn't know that it was Meg."

"You could have told me that my goddamn stepsister was pretending to be a nurse in there. She said you knew."

"Yeah, I did. Look, she didn't want me to tell you and-you know she is actually a nurse? Not just pretending."

"Sorry, I'm just getting used to things. This is so weird. Waking up in a strange room you've never seen before. They told me I survived the fall off the roof and...Meg said I might be coming home."

"That's what they hope."

"Listen, Anna," she says, very severely now. "I remember what happened. And I'm not going to hold anything against you. Hey, what's that you got there?" She raises her arm slowly, pointing at Anna's drawing which is folded up in her hand.

"Oh, it's just something I doodled, out in the waiting room. Nothing really."

"Come on, let's see."

"Alright." Anna takes it out. It is slightly scrunched up now but she displays it where Ruby can see it. "It's us as Disney Princesses. Look, I'm Ariel." She points out the red headed princess. "And that's you. In the end, I decided you should be Snow White. You know, because of the rose red cheeks or whatever they were supposed to be. I don't think your skin's as white as snow or your hair's as black as ebony and I can't see you singing to birds but, you know." The two princesses, bearing the faces of the two girls, are holding hands and staring into each others' eyes.

"Yeah, and I did pretty much have an evil stepfather. I don't think he had a magic mirror though. Hey, can you tell me what day it is?"

"Fifteenth December."

"That's your birthday, right?"

"Yeah."

"Happy birthday. I'd sing to you but-"

"Don't worry, Meg covered that."

"So I've been in here, what, five weeks?"

"Uh huh. "

"Wow. And you're out of the clinic, too. Back to living with your family?"

"No, I, uh. I actually moved out. And Meg offered me a place at her house."

"You moved out?"

"Yeah, it turned out things with my mom, and my dad, weren't going as well as I hoped and...I left." A story for another day.

"I can't feel my goddamn leg," Ruby finally says, gesturing to the leg which is all bound up in bandages. "I can't move it. They say a physiotherapist or something is coming this afternoon to check it out, but...Anna, be honest with me, is my leg paralyzed?"

"If you mean, will you be able to use it again...They don't think so."

Ruby lets her head fall back with disappointment. "Goddamn leg. And what about Lilith? And Violet and Zola? Like, what happens when they all take over."

"They say you're going to have a psychologist. A new psychologist who's a professional in dealing with DID. I don't know much about it but I read this method online. If they get all your alters to work together, and like, get on with each other..." she doesn't finish her sentence. Meg had reminded her a thousand times on the car journey not to give Ruby false hope. "But it doesn't matter. You're out of there, now. I promised you, didn't I? I promised we'd leave together."

Anna slowly walks towards Ruby, leaning in over her chair, and kisses her. And it isn't perfect, the Earth doesn't move like it did the first few times, her heart doesn't fill with all those nervous butterflies now she is all used to it. The kiss is uncomfortable, maybe because there is such a large height difference between them now, because she has to angle herself so she doesn't squash Ruby's bad leg again. But what matters now is not the quality of the kiss, but they are reunited. And they still love each other, just as strongly as before.

Meg walks in and sees them, causing Ruby to quickly back the chair away and Anna to almost lose her balance, stumbling with her lips still puckered.

"Are you two done there? Because the physiotherapist is here."

"Goddammit," Ruby moans and she has said 'goddamn' so many more times than usual, today. Anna smiles, as she gets up, says goodbye to Ruby.

Ruby will be in here for Christmas. Really, they'll all be in here for Christmas because they knows she won't want the day alone. Being in here must suck for Ruby, and she can acknowledge that. Anna feels sorry for her, she still feels regret and anger at herself because what happened to Ruby there is ultimately her fault.

But they are free. Both of them are free, free from the mental hospital, free from the horror of their past familial life. Free to be together.


End file.
